Devils Without And Devils Within
by SuckerForTheVillians
Summary: Daniel is among thousands of children who have had their memories removed and are forced to train in an alien "school", but what is really going on? With more questions than answers, Daniel struggles to not only free his friends, but try and figure out what is wrong with him, because at every turn, Daniel discovers that danger does not just lurk around him, but from inside.
1. Chapter 1: Part I

**Before beginning this story, I should provide some warnings:  
**

**Firstly, the rating is as high as it is due to graphic violence and swear words. **

**Secondly, this story is actually a massive crossover between a wide range of cartoons and comics that fit into the theme of the story. Some characters will be immediately familiar to you and mentioned, others will be mentioned or seen in passing, and a few will only be referenced or seen in the background of events. Some of the other crossovers include the X-Men series (predominantly the movies since these are the ones I am most familiar with), the Batman series (pick your flavor, as I have no particular series or movies in mind for this part), the Justice League (again, pick your flavor), the Avengers (movies predominantly), Young Justice (some of these characters also appear in Teen Titans, so I will for the most part refer to the Teen Titans versions, but I might merge a few if I feel it flows better), etc. Again, this is a very massive crossover, but knowledge on any of the series I will mention will not be necessary. For the most part, this story can stand on its own, despite its use of characters and situations involving these series. **

**Lastly, I will provide notes at the end of chapters to provide some insights, explanations, and the like as I feel it is necessary.**

******To anyone who is not familiar with the real names of the Titans, they are as** follows: Cyborg (Victor Stone), Beast Boy (Garfield Logan), Starfire (Koriand'r)  


* * *

A bright light flashed; he could see it even through his shut eyes. Deafening noises filled his ears almost to the point where he thought they might explode. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't move, but he wasn't sure if something was wrong with his body or he just didn't remember how to use his limbs. He opened his eyes, letting in a bright white light. His vision swam and he squinted his eyes against the white rays as he tried to let his eyes adjust. He twitched his fingers, the feeling fascinatingly wonderful. Slowly, he began moving his limbs, amazed at the range of motion he had. Once his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, he looked down at his legs and began moving them up and down, bending his knee and stretching it out again. He stared wide-eyed and awed when he felt something touch his chest and push him back down. He looked up with amazement at the figure standing over him. He could only see a silhouette, but he could make out the mouth moving.

"…waking…u…seda…ve," the words were jumbled and unintelligible to him.

He opened his mouth and let out some noise, but only managed to make a choked rasping noise. He tried again, and as words started forming in his mouth, a rush of realization flooded his brain. Panic became all he knew as he scoured his brain for answers. "W-w-wh-where a-am I?!" he shouted, jolting up into a sitting position and looking around in alarm.

"Lay him back down," someone said. As ordered, several hands—somehow the hands felt _wrong_, although he could not discern why—pushed him forcefully back down onto what he now recognized as cold metal and strapped him down by his wrists, legs and chest. He fought them, flailing his limbs as he tried to get back up, but the hands were stronger than him and the control he had over his arms and legs was weak and he was strapped to the table with ease.

Thoughts continued rushing into his head; reason, awareness, suspicion… fear; all overwhelmingly clear to him now made him struggle and shout. He looked around the eerily all-white room where tall, slim figures typed on computers and wrote on notepads as they watched him.

Suddenly he felt a sharp prick in his arm. He shouted and tried to pull away, but the straps kept him from getting very far. He looked down to see a needle sticking out of his skin that sent some clear liquid into his body. Immediately, he became dizzy, his eyes losing focus and his head bobbing tiredly. Laying his head down, losing the energy to fight, he watched hazily as the figures took what looked like a gun and touched it to the side of his neck. Before he got the chance to feel the full sting of the gun, his eyes had closed, letting him fall back into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

5125. He continued to hear those numbers all through his sleep until he was able to open his eyes again. He sat up in the cot he was now lying in, which revealed a brutal headache that pounded loudly in his skull, and examined the room around him. It was tight, dark and colorless. The decor consisted of three cots- two of which were apparently occupied judging by the lumped blankets in the shape of bodies- beside his, a toilet and a sink. Even in the darkness, he could tell that everything in the room was white: the bunks, the walls, the floor, the toilet, all of it.

He foggily remembered the night before; the new sensations, the strange figures, the incomprehensible feeling of knowing nothing; remembering nothing. He had woken in a void of emptiness. It had almost felt like he had come into the world for the first time. Like being born.

"Psst!"

His heart skipped a beat and in his surprise he fell off his bed with a thud. Shortly after, he heard a laugh.

"Sorry!" the voice said, the laughter slowly subsiding. "Didn't mean to scare you."

He stood up shakily, having to relearn the process, and looked around in the darkness until he spotted a figure sitting up in one of the cots.

"Who are you?" he asked. The question was familiar and automatic, but it felt odd to him to ask it.

"2240," he answered. "Or… at least that's what they call me. My name is Garfield. But you can call me Gar."

"They?"

"Yeah. They," the figure- Garfield- answered and then paused. His head titled with interest. "You're new. What's your number?"

"My number?"

"Yeah. The number they gave you. Your ID tag. Should be on your neck. Here, let me see," Garfield said, jumping off of his cot and appearing in front of him. Closer, he could see that Garfield had pointed ears as the other boy brought him towards the door. He tried to follow Garfield, but found his steps clumsy and he tripped over himself several times as he desperately tried to remember how to walk. Garfield helped him patiently until he had brought him over to the door. Small rays of light peeked through the cracks in the door, giving him a glance of the green skin on Garfield's body. He stared at the other boy as the latter tilted his head to examine his neck. Something about the boy's green skin and pointed ears threw him and made him feel uncomfortable, but he couldn't figure out why or why he couldn't stop staring.

"5125," Garfield said, and then began counting on his fingers while mumbling something to himself.

"What is that?" he asked. He recognized the numbers very well, having just dreamed about them, but wasn't sure what they meant.

"Your ID tag. It's to tell you apart from everybody else. Oh, and you have to memorize these. Otherwise you'll never know when you're being called and they hate it when you don't do what you're told. You get in big trouble," Garfield said, turning and going over to one of the cots occupied by a large mound. "Vic, wake up. There's a new kid."

"So?" The mound rolled over in an attempt to ignore the other boy.

"So I need you to crack his ID tag."

The figure sat up, partially revealing the bulky mass of muscle and some sort of shiny material beneath the blanket. "What's the number?"

"5125."

The boy on the cot sighed, moved his arm and seemed to be pressing it like there were buttons there. After a few moments, he answered, "Daniel."

"Thanks," Garfield said, turning to him. "Your name's Daniel."

Another flash of memory invaded his mind, making his headache worse than before. The name was familiar, but he couldn't remember why. It was just a familiar word; it felt somehow uncomfortable and unnatural, but familiar nonetheless. "Daniel?" he repeated hesitantly, letting the word roll off of his tongue slowly as he came to grips with it and its meaning.

"Yep," Garfield answered. "They don't like taking time to figure out names for us, so they just code the name's we already had, which I think is dumb."

"Already had? W-what's that mean?"

Suddenly a buzzer began blaring above them. Daniel threw his hands over his ears; hoping that his headache wouldn't make his head explode. He felt sick and nauseous.

The heavy, steel door hissed as it opened to a tall, bulky, yet sleek looking creature. Its head had what looked like a long fin starting from the forehead and stopping again at the back of its neck. Its skin was an aqua green and was missing some facial features, such as ears and a nose. It was also holding something in its hand. The beady, all-black eyes of the creature regarded the three boys in the room with a sneer.

The lump on the last cot—who appeared to be older than both Daniel and Garfield—sat up and got out of the bed, revealing just how tall the darker-skinned was. Not only that, but Daniel also got a good look at just how unusual this other boy was. The shine that he had observed had come from the limbs and body parts of the boy that had been replaced with high-tech metal and circuitry. The tall boy walked out of the room with a glance Daniel's way. He was followed quickly by Garfield out of the room. As they passed the creature at the door, they bent their necks forward for the creature to put what was now obviously a scanner of some sort and scan the ID tags on the back of their necks.

"Come on, Da- 5125," Garfield said as he was shoved towards a long line forming in the hall. With the light shining through now, he could see the tall, metal-bodied teen who had decoded his name and the short, green-skinned and dark-green haired boy, along with several other odd-looking creatures forming up a line outside.

"Student, get in the line," the creature at the door demanded. Although the threat in its words were clear, Daniel could not help but notice the smooth, almost pleasant tone the creature's voice held.

Daniel looked up, squinting his eyes against the light. He couldn't move. The nausea was threatening to bring up the contents of his stomach—was there anything there _to_ throw up?—and his head was pounding due to the bright light coming through the door.

After taking too long to decide what to do, the creature walked heavily into the cell, grabbed Daniel's arm and hauled him forward. Daniel instinctively tried to dig in his heels, but he was no match for the strength of the creature pulling him and only managed to irritate it. The creature, releasing its grip on Daniel's upper arm, grabbed his head, long fingers tangling into his raven-black hair as it tilted Daniel's head forward It scanned him and then tossed him stumbling into the line. A metal bar separating the walkway from the floor three stories below stopped his stumbling and he latched onto it as soon as he hit it to catch himself. He looked down at the floors below, where the walkways beneath them were filled up with other creatures and people who all looked to be about his age, lining up for some unknown purpose. At ground level, the lines dissipated and the various creatures were filing out of a heavy door at the far end of the room.

Not wanting to get into any more trouble, Daniel shrugged himself off and began following the line groggily as it went past cell after cell of beings he had never seen before. All shapes and sizes and colors, dressed in the same, dull grey jumpsuits that it was apparently required of them to wear.

The line wound its way down to ground level, where they were taken, twelve at a time, into a shower area. They were allowed five minutes to clean before being given a new set of grey clothing and laceless shoes and ushered back into another long line.

Daniel followed clumsily along until he eventually came to two huge, automatic doors marked with white words and lettering that read: C6. These doors were the entrance to an enormous, all-white room. It was filled with tables, chairs and another long line off to the right. The line of creatures held trays and bowls that they placed in slots along the wall that would be returned to them filled with different colored mushes. Daniel was carried down to this line and, simply following what everyone else was doing, took a bowl from one of the piles. He went up to the first slot in the wall, but it would not open to him, so he moved on to the next.

He passed eight different slots before one finally opened for him, taking his bowl and returning it seconds later, filled to the top with a brown, unappetizing mush. He frowned at the substance occupying his bowl before turning and looking around the seemingly endless room nervously. Most of the creatures around looked like they would gladly tear his head off if he dared approach them, so he decided to try and find an empty table. At first glance, however, it looked like the task would be easier said than done. It was clear that the thousands of table occupying the room were there to fill the thousands of people and creatures crowding to occupy them.

Just as he began heading off to find some remote corner, he felt someone grab his arm. He stiffened and an inexorable instinct came over him. In a swift motion, he passed his bowl to his left hand and grabbed the hand that was holding him with his right, only to find the green-skinned boy.

"Whoa, Dude! You almost broke my wrist!"

Daniel looked at Garfield's wrist, which was clasped tightly in his hand, blinking away confusion. He released him.

"What was that? Super-reflexes or something?"

He looked down at his hand with interest and then at Garfield again. "I- I don't know."

Garfield stared at him a few seconds more, pondering over his previous assessment, before quickly moving on. "So where were you going? Come sit with us," the green skinned boy said, leading Daniel by his arm through the crowds, casually passing the tables of monsters until he stopped in front of a table occupied by far less terrifying beings, all of which were very human-looking. There was the tall, mechanical-bodied, bald, black-skinned boy—likely the oldest—and two girls. One of them had red hair and orange skin with crystal-green eyes while the other looked rather pale with purple hair and purple eyes. Sitting side by side, they were a great contrast of each other.

"Hey, guys, this is 5125, aka Daniel. Daniel, aka, 5125, this-" he said, gesturing, "is 3157, aka Victor. The girl with the red hair is 1911, aka Koriand'r, the other girl is 1854, aka Raven. You know who I am," he said.

Daniel nodded and sat down beside Garfield uncomfortably, staring down at his bowl. A metal object had been placed in it, which although he at first did not know what it was, finally recalled it as a spoon. He picked it up awkwardly and stared at it for a moment and then looked down at the mush. Although the object was familiar visually, he couldn't remember what it was for. For several minutes he stared at the spoon and the bowl, trying to get a mental picture of what he was supposed to do with them when the red-headed girl, Koriand'r, reached over and took his arm.

"That is a spoon. I will show you how to use it," she said. She fixed the spoon so that it was sitting in his hand just so, and then guided it down to the bowl, dug a small spoonful and then brought it up to his mouth, enabling him to take a bite.

"You see?" Koriand'r said. "Now you try."

The memory returned quickly after having been shown and he managed to take the next bite with no help. Koriand'r clapped happily for him. "Very good!"

He smiled gratefully.

"So, do you remember anything?" Victor asked as he gobbled down a large spoonful of mush.

"Should I?"

"I guess that's a no," Garfield said with a good-humored chuckle.

"Some people remember their lives before this," Victor said, briefly looking up from his food as he stuffed it hastily into his face. "Most of us can remember bits and pieces. Raven remembers _most_ of her life before this."

"What is _this_?" Daniel asked, the confusion worsening his headache more than ever. He rested his head in his hands and shut his eyes tightly.

"Oh, yeah. The headaches. Don't worry. They go away," Victor stated.

"My aching head has not gone away yet," Koriand'r said with a sad frown.

"You've only been here a week. They usually go away after the first month."

Daniel frowned at the thought of having to endure an entire month with his headache and frowned deeply. Rubbing his fingers against his temples in futile attempts to massage away the pain resonating there, Daniel asked, "The first month of what? What is this place?"

"I'll tell him," Garfield said.

"You're a horrible story-teller, Garfield. Somebody else tell him," Raven said, her voice dull and dry.

"I'll tell him," Victor said. "You've been picked up by Talent Scouts. As far as anybody can tell, they go from place to place picking up talented, skilled, or powerful teenagers."

"Why can't I remember anything?"

"They wipe everyone's memories when they get here, but like I said, it starts to come back after a while."

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a voice over a speaker-phone: "_Attention new students. Report to the Wardens at the west entrance to the Assessment Center. All other students, report to the Enrichment Center._"

"I hate it when they call us students," Victor commented irritably.

"_Student 5125, report to the Wardens at the east entrance immediately_."

It didn't register at first, everything being so new to him, but Garfield, quick to aid his new-found friend, hurriedly tapped Daniel's shoulder. "That's you! Go!" the green boy said, pushing him out of his seat.

Daniel glanced back at them nervously, but the group urged him on with short, urgent waves of their hands, so he turned and headed towards the entrance to the mess hall, where he had first come from. He could hear murmuring and whispering as he passed tables and the different monsters that occupied them, but tried to ignore them.

He came to the entrance and was met by two tall, slim creatures like the creature who had first dragged him out of his cell. They didn't say a word as they turned and began leading him down the hall he had just come from, but instead of heading towards the cell block, they turned down a secondary hall. This hall curved away from the direction of the cell block for several minutes, passing by doors that appeared on passing glance to have no purpose, before ending in a small room with six doors, three on either side of the wall. The Wardens stepped into one of these, which turned out to be an elevator. One of the Wardens pressed a button on the keypad beside the doors and the elevator moved, although Daniel wasn't certain if it was going up or down. When the elevator came to a stop, they stepped out and followed another, shorter curved hallway, which ended at a tall, steel-plated door.

One of the Wardens reached over to a pad on the side and tapped in over a dozen numbers and letters. The door opened and allowed them to pass, closing quickly again behind them.

The Wardens led Daniel down several more halls like these, typing in codes onto pads that allowed them to pass into another hall, each one requiring more effort to get into than the last: placing their hands on scanners, voice scanners, and various other scanners. Finally they came to a last short hall with another steel-armored door. Here, there was a pad with a microphone.

"Director," one of the Wardens spoke into it, "we have student 5125 here."

The door opened with a hiss of air. The Wardens took Daniel inside, the door shutting firmly with a second hiss behind them.

They now stood in a pleasant, almost relaxing room, filled with color, furnishings and decorations. There were sculptures and paintings all over the shelves and walls that made the entire room look classy and elegant. At the end of the room was a desk and a comfortable-looking chair. Seated in it was an extremely slim, green-grey skinned creature. It looked similar to the Wardens in that it was sleek and without ears or a nose, but it also had a gentler, smoother look to it. Its eyes were large and green-black and looked more intelligent. As Daniel stared at it, it suddenly occurred to him why all of the creatures he had been seeing were so unnerving to him—they weren't human. He had never seen anything like them. The particular characteristics on the creature in front of him gave undeniable evidence of it's species. Its arms were extremely long, same as its legs. Every limb moved with grace, like they were underwater. It was an alien. Now that his mind was finally discerning what it was seeing, Daniel realized that the Wardens were the same species as the creature in front of him, just with slight differences.

Another similar-looking alien stood beside the seated one—this one looking older due to its wrinkles and tired expression—and looked up as they entered.

"Student 5125?" the standing one asked the Warden, who nodded accordingly. It sighed, and then looked down at the seated alien. "Director, there has apparently been an error in our systems. We retrieved the wrong humanoid from earth. That student is an error."

"An error?" the Director said, it's voice very obviously female. She looked up at her colleague and laughed. "Our systems never error, Envoy."

The standing alien (Envoy) handed her a folder. She took it and glanced over it briefly. "What has been done about this?" she asked, her tone intensifying.

"The Recruiter has been disposed of, Director, and preventative protocols have been put in place. Now, shall I dispose of the error?" Envoy asked, looking at Daniel, who stared back boldly, undeterred.

She waved her hand in response.

Envoy bowed deeply and then turned to the Wardens. "Take the error to the furnaces."

They nodded.

Daniel felt a hand grip his arm and suddenly he wasn't thinking. The instinct he had felt before came rushing back to him tenfold. Quicker than the Warden could react, Daniel reached around, grabbed the hand on his shoulder and pivoted his body, landing a punch into the jaw of the Warden. He then kicked it, sending it away from him. With the first Warden momentarily out of his way, he turned and grabbed the fist that had been aimed for his face from the second Warden. Having a firm hold on the second alien, Daniel yanked it towards him, waiting for the Warden's back to come into his view, then stabbed his elbow down into the small of the Warden's back, slamming it to the ground.

The other Warden, now recovering, turned towards him, this time with a nightstick in its hand. The Warden raised it over its head to strike at him, but before it had time to react, Daniel had grabbed the stick with one hand and thrust his other fist into the Warden's stomach.

While distracted by the two aliens, he had not anticipated Envoy to attack. At some point during the brawl, Envoy had grabbed a tazer from a hidden drawer and jammed it into Daniel's side.

His eyes widened as his body was halted by the volts of electricity now spreading from his side to the rest of his body. His knees gave out and he doubled over, limbs twitching.

"Pick him up and take him away immediately!" Envoy commanded.

Standing weakly from the ground, the Wardens, who were now breathing heavily from the beating they had received, did as they were told and picked Daniel up from the floor, ready to take him away, when the Director spoke firmly, "Halt, Wardens."

They turned and faced her again.

The Director stared at Daniel intensely with her large eyes, tapping her fingers together thoughtfully. Finally, she looked at Envoy. "Such talent… especially for a human specimen with no skill or training. Perhaps he is more unique than I had originally thought. Do not dispose of the error. Take him to the Assessment Center and I will call on him soon."

With a bow from the Wardens, they turned and took Daniel away.

* * *

**For anyone who read this and got confused, there is a reason I am using the non-hero names of all of these characters and an explanation will be provided further along in the story. **

**Raven's name, if you noticed, is not altered. That is due to the fact that each "student" is referred to by their formal or real name. Raven did have an alias named Rachel Roth in the comic series, but that is not actually her birth name, so that name is not used for her.**

**I will publish updates twice a week when possible. Probably Mondays and Fridays.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry about this chapter being a day late. My sister came down from Washington to visit and I got distracted. Anyway, I don't think this chapter is a terribly confusing one or needs any explanations, but if it does, just let me know and I'll update it.  
**

* * *

Daniel was placed into a clear pod and strapped to a vertical slab that was body-shaped at the far wall in the Assessment Center. He recognized the all-white walls and too bright lights from when he had first woken. The walls were lined with pods similar to the one he was in, ranging in sizes, and in the center were several tables and virtual computer desks.

Daniel stood in the pod, looking down at his hand, where he flexed his muscles and pulled at the restraints that only allowed his arms to lift off of the slab a few inches. Being left alone for the first time since waking, he could do little but listen to his body's complaints. The nausea in the pit of his stomach had worsened, there was a tight ball of stress in his core that had not stopped pestering him since he had first woken up, and his head still hurt as his subconscious busied itself trying to retrieve whatever had been taken from him.

A tall and slender Talent Scout with a long, white lab coat with a silver pendant on the collar approached his pod, looking in on him with its large, all-black eyes. At the Talent Scout's touch, the glass of Daniel's pod lit up with lights like a computer screen. A red light displayed Daniel's pulse in a steady rhythm off to the side and just above it was the outline of his body, more, thinner lines showing where his bones and veins were. On the other side was what he could only assume was some sort of keyboard, although it was hard to be certain due to the strange symbols that hung inside various sized circles.

Daniel watched as a red light flashed at the top of the pod from the inside and slowly made its way down until it disappeared again at his feet. After the light was gone, he felt a sharp prick on his wrist. He gasped and looked down, seeing that, along with the cord connecting the strap to the metal slab, there was a tube that had turned from clear to a vibrant red.

The Talent Scout scientist looked at the screen on the pod as each test was completed and, as each new set of data appeared on the screen, the alien's face appeared more and more confused. After a few more tests were performed, the Talent Scout turned and beckoned another scientist.

The glass of the pod hissed as it was opened by the new alien. The second reached inside, resting its long-fingered hand on Daniel's forehead, despite the boy's attempt to turn his head away. The alien then pressed two fingers against the center of his chest and kept them there for a couple of minutes. The two aliens looked at each other, making gestures and head movements as though speaking to one another, but never opening their mouths. Finally, the second Talent Scout walked off, while the other stayed and began placing little suction cups attached to wires onto his forehead. It then removed his shirt (two zippers on both sides of his shirt that went all the way up along the arm allowed for it to be removed without having to undo his restraints) and began placing more of the little suction cups on his chest. The Talent Scout only paused in its work when the other alien and a new one came up to look over the information on the screen once they had closed Daniel's pod again. All three stood and shook their heads at each other, confused expressions on their faces, before the new one left to get another Talent Scout to take a look.

Before he knew it, there were eight Talent Scouts surrounding his pod, each of them glancing at the screen with the same curious expressions as their fellows. Eventually, they decided to test him again, and proceeded to do the tests a second time. The red scanner passed over his body, the prick returned at his wrist, similar pricks appearing at different parts of his body as samples were taken from him. All eight of them found it necessary to check his heart rate, his pulse, and generally give him a very thorough looking over. When that was not enough, they ran the tests a third time, adding extra pokes and prods with needles and fingers. Each result caused the scientists to look at each other, communing silently and shaking their heads.

Daniel watched them quietly, trying to gauge what could be causing such confusion amongst them. He wasn't enjoying the tests, (they weren't necessarily painful, but they weren't terribly comfortable either) but he was starting to become as interested in the results as the Talent Scouts were. Maybe something in his blood would tell him something about himself that had been lost.

After almost an hour of deliberation, sampling, and bewilderment, Envoy and the Director were at last called upon.

The Director looked on at the results of Daniel's tests with an intrigued expression. Her black eyes flicked to the boy in the pod, an almost proud expression on her face. To Daniel's surprise, she actually addressed him.

"5125, are you coherent?"

Daniel stared at her suspiciously, swallowing down hesitance. "Yes."

"Are you aware of your species' classification?"

"I'm human, if that's what you mean."

The Director nodded patiently, glancing again at the results on the screen of his pod. "Disregarding nausea and headaches, are you experiencing any other discomfort or illness?"

Daniel's brow furrowed in confusion. "Illness? Am I sick?"

"You will answer the questions the Director poses you, _child_," Envoy commanded suddenly.

"It is quite alright, Envoy. The boy's confusion is understandable," the Director spoke gently, never looking away from Daniel. "Do answer the question, 5125."

Daniel shot a glare at Envoy before answering, "No. I feel fine."

"Interesting. You see, your vitals are far below that of average human beings. According to your species' biology, you ought to be hypothermic right now. Do you feel hypothermic?"

Daniel blinked at her, trying to figure out what she might mean. "No, I'm… fine, but… what… is something wrong with me?"

The Director turned to address Envoy, who had not stopped looking at Daniel like one would an irritating fly buzzing around one's head, and smiled proudly at him. "You see, Envoy? We do not make errors." She then turned to the Talent Scout with the silver pendant who had first discovered something amiss, "I suspect that there is more to this student than there appears. Further tests need to be conducted. Envoy will give you a detailed schedule for him, but for now reintegrate him with the rest of the students. He will need to eat and socialize."

The Talent Scouts bowed their heads to her, and then turned again to Daniel as she and Envoy left the Assessment Center. Once she had gone, Daniel was released from the pod and escorted away.

* * *

Daniel's first day was not proving to be an easy one. He had spent a good deal of time in the Assessment Center and had missed lunch. His Warden escorts got him food regardless and allowed him to eat as they rushed him off down the halls. Eventually, they came to a wider hall that was lined up with other students, all bustling to get into another room. His two escorts gestured for him to go, so Daniel walked to the end of the line. He glanced around at the creatures and teens around him who were all eying him suspiciously, but paid him little more heed. Curious as to what everyone was waiting for, he stood up on his tiptoes to get a glimpse into the room they were headed towards, but he couldn't see past the much larger creatures ahead of him.

"Hey! 5125!"

Daniel looked up as Garfield pushed his way through the crowd to get to him. Once he had pushed past a pair of particularly large teenagers with looks of irritation at both of them, Garfield grinned at Daniel.

"Hey! Good to see you're still alive! What did they want with you?"

"They were going to kill me," Daniel said bluntly.

"Oh. Well, why didn't they?"

Daniel shrugged. "Honestly? I have no idea..."

Garfield looked at him for a second, then shrugged dismissively. "Well, glad they didn't, anyway."

Daniel smiled appreciatively. "Thanks. So, uh… where are we going now?"

"It's the Training Center. This is where we practice our skills and spar. The TS's want us at peak physical and mental condition, so they let us use our skills."

"Yeah, you said earlier that everyone here had powers or skills. I've been thinking about that and… well, this is probably a stupid question with an obvious answer, but I'm going to ask anyway… why hasn't anyone escaped yet?"

"Oh, they give us these," Garfield said, pulling up the sleeve of his grey jump suit to reveal a thin scar on his wrist.

"What is that?"

"It's a suppressor. Vic says that it… I don't know… merges with your veins or something like that… I don't remember how it works. Point is; it makes sure that we can't use our powers outside of the Training Center."

Daniel looked at Garfield's scar, and then pulled the sleeve away from his own wrist. He also had a scar. "What does it do to people who don't have powers?"

"I don't know. I _do_ know that if you do something they don't like, they can give you a pretty bad shock with it. But you've really got to ask Vic these questions. This isn't exactly my area of expertise," Garfield said, then looked up. "Aaaand… here's the Training Center."

Daniel looked up as they followed the last of the line into one of the six large double doors that lined the wall for several hundred feet in either direction. They were each labeled TC1, TC2, and so on until TC6. There were six other halls, each leading to one of the six doors, and had hundreds of students lined up at the doors. Daniel was ushered into the sixth along with Garfield. The Training Center was an enormous, dome-shaped room that looked to be about at least two dozen football fields wide and one dozen long. Evenly dispersed in rows were smaller, but still large, clear domes. From above, it probably looked like bubble wrap.

Daniel stared for a long while, mouth slightly agape.

"We each get a dome that we can practice our powers in. There's a panel where you can request different obstacles or equipment if you need it to the left of the door. And… let's see… this is your first day, so you won't have to duel anyone."

"_All students: report to your designated training zone and commence training,_" a voice spoke above them.

"How do I know which dome to go to?" Daniel asked.

"They're numbered according to your name. So you need to go find dome 5125. I'll see you at mealtime," Garfield said with a wave as he ran off to find his dome.

"But-" Daniel started, but Garfield was already halfway down one of the aisles. Daniel swallowed, looking up and down the rows of domes, wondering how he would ever find his assigned dome in the intimidating maze.

A Talent Scout suddenly appeared beside him—it was one of the aliens that had escorted him to see the Director. It gestured for him to follow, so he did.

The Talent Scout led him down twenty-two rows to the left before finally stopping. Daniel looked at the dome to find that it did indeed have his number on it, like it had been indented into whatever clear material had been used to construct the dome. There were four almost invisible lines that Daniel assumed were the door and beside it to the left, as Garfield had said, was a lightly outlined panel.

The door opened of its own accord as he stepped up to it, and closed immediately after he had stepped inside. It hissed as it locked him in and the panel beside the door became more apparent, shining slightly as the screen displayed different training options. There were drones, humanoid and otherwise, gym equipment, obstacle courses, targets and other things that surprised him to find like water, fire, and other elements, live animals, humanoids or alien/monsters, different environments and a range of other options that bordered on the ridiculous.

"Why would they offer a magic kit?" Daniel asked to himself as he swiped his finger over the page.

"_Student 5125, selection will close in approximately thirty seconds and training will begin. Make a selection or use recommended settings._"

Daniel looked up in surprise at having been addressed personally and looked around the other domes to see if anyone else had heard it. The other students around him had already begun training and didn't appear to notice. He looked down at the key pad again and decided to try the recommended setting, hoping that the Talent Scouts knew more about what kind of training he should undergo since he had no powers.

"_Selected equipment: weaponized drones. Training will commence in three… two… one._"

Daniel looked behind him as part of the floor pulled apart and a platform rose from below. Hovering a few feet off of the platform were three disks, each with six or eight small holes around the bases. As soon as the platform had sealed with the floor, the holes facing Daniel on the drones started to glow.

Before he had any time to prepare himself, Daniel was just managing to duck out of the way as six red beams fired off at him. He landed harshly, but used his momentum to roll across the floor and leap out of the way of three more shots that fired at where he had landed. Surprised at his own dexterity and speed, he felt a boost in confidence and started moving and dodging even faster, staying well out of the way of the shots that were fired at him.

Although he had been caught off guard by just how rigorous and demanding the training exercise was, he somehow couldn't help but feel invigorated. He took full advantage of the roominess and dimensions of the dome as he nimbly zigzagged, ran and darted around.

He wasn't content to just run around his bubble dodging however. He wanted to test himself and his limits. He had been keeping an eye on the drones. They had fast firing rates, but their guns were only on their sides, which meant that their bellies and tops were vulnerable.

Daniel squinted his eyes in a determined expression and, as he ran over to the slanted wall, he ran up it partway and jumped backwards onto the top of one of the three drones. The weight of the boy was too much for the drone to continue floating and it was driven into the ground with a crash of sparks and thin metal.

Immediately upon landing, Daniel rolled off of it, jumped up, ran over to the wall and did it again, landing squarely on the back of the second drone, but this time, he grabbed it just above the turrets so that it wouldn't shoot his fingers off and flipped over so that he landed with it in his hands. Spinning around, he flung it like a Frisbee into the last drone, sending them both crashing to the floor.

"_Training exercise complete. Calibrating next selection… calibration complete. Selected equipment: custom."_

Daniel looked up at this curiously. He didn't have to wonder what it meant for long because the floor ahead of him pulled away and a huge humanoid drone appeared. From Daniel's first assessment, there didn't appear to be any obvious weaknesses, but he was feeling pumped and up to the challenge, so he got into a defensive stance, waiting to see what the new drone had in store.

Daniel went to take a step back and keep a comfortable distance between himself and the drone only to discover that his feet wouldn't move. Panicked, he looked down, but could find no obvious reason that he shouldn't be able to take a step back. His head shot up as the drone's arms shot out for his neck. He grabbed its hands and pushed back, his arms shaking as he fought to keep the drone at bay. His back bent backwards as the drone continued to try and grab at his neck, but his legs remained glued to the same spot on the floor, making the position extremely uncomfortable.

As he just barely managed to keep the hands of the humanoid automaton away from his neck, he wondered in the back of his mind how the situation he found himself in constituted as training. At this point, he was just trying to make sure the drone didn't kill him, unsure as to the lengths the Talent Scouts would go.

His arms, trembling with effort, were beginning to bend as the drone gained leeway, steadily causing Daniel to bend backward more and more. At some point, his body was sure to simply snap in half.

It was quickly becoming clear that this was a losing battle. His arms were weakening, the core of his center was painfully tight and tense, and his body could only bend so far. He scanned the drone over another time, hoping to find something that he might have missed, but its outer layer of rubbery skin revealed no exposed wires or anything that he could grab onto and he didn't have sufficient leverage to deflect the robot's advances elsewhere. He was trapped.

Eventually, his arms couldn't hold the robot's at bay anymore and he was shoved backwards onto his back, his legs bending awkwardly as the bottom of his feet remained glued to the floor. The drone's hands shot out and latched onto his neck and Daniel shut his eyes as he prepared for the automaton to either choke him or break his neck, but instead, it got off of him and was lowered down back into the floor on a platform.

"_Training exercise complete. Calibrating next selection…_"

Daniel's feet were released, allowing him to sit up and flex his uncomfortably stretched leg muscles.

"_Calibration complete. Selected equipment: fire environment._"

The training exercise lasted two hours, but to Daniel it felt like an eternity. Eventually, he figured out that the training equipment being selected for him were to evaluate his skills and any abilities he might have. He supposed it was clever of the Talent Scouts to present their students with different situations, in case anyone tried to hide a skill or ability, but his acknowledgement of the Talent Scout's methods only went that far. As far as he was concerned, they were just trying to torture him.

Because he was managing to finish each training exercise quickly, he was being presented with a wide range of training exercises. The environment changes in his pod were not so much him having to fight anything, but rather just to see if he could handle the change in weather and temperature conditions. To his own surprise, none of the temperature changes bothered him very much. During the fire environment training, his pod was surrounded with flames that quickly built up the temperature, but Daniel only felt mildly hot. The same went with the colder temperatures, which were done using blizzard-like weather. Despite the extreme conditions, they were just slightly uncomfortable.

After the weather and temperature exercises were completed, his training switched to gauge his intelligence. He was given various battle drones that posed different situational threats, similar to a more physical game of chess. He wasn't allowed to fight all of them at once, but instead had to determine what battle drone was the most threatening, and hope that his choice didn't end with him getting hit with an electrical bolt (which he was unfortunately hit with more than once). After all of the exercises were finished, he wondered if the Talent Scouts would think he was stupid, since he had not done terribly well on the intellectual portion of his training.

Finally the two hours had gone by and the pod opened up for him. He hurriedly jumped out, not wanting to be in it any more than he had to, and was immediately met by Victor, who was grinning at him.

"Hey, you did really well," he commented.

Daniel looked up at him from where he stood bent over, hands resting on his knees and panting as he tried to catch his breath. "I beg to differ."

Victor shook his head. "No, man, I was watching you from my pod," he said, pointing to the pod crossways from Daniel's. "You did really good. Especially for your first day. I've haven't seen someone go through that many equipment selections in one sitting in a while. You must be exhausted."

Daniel nodded, wondering how on earth Victor had managed to do his own training exercises _and_ watch him at the same time. He hoped that perhaps the training exercises got easier as they went along.

"Did they give you your ranking yet?"

"My what?"

"Your ranking," Victor said again. "Your rank will decide who you'll have to spar with later on."

Daniel frowned. He had gotten to look around at some of the other pods around him before his training had started and everyone he had seen had some sort of power. He didn't particularly like the idea of having to fight any of them. "No, I don't think I've gotten it yet. Where do I-"

"Oh, there it is," Victor said, looking over Daniel's head at the pod behind him.

Daniel followed his gaze to view the number that had formed above his identification number on the dome.

"What does 9D7 stand for?" Daniel asked, reading the word aloud.

"Not bad," Victor said, elbowing his shoulder encouragingly. "The 9 stands for your physical ability and the D stands for your intelligence level. You got just three below the highest on that one, so nice job."

"What?" Daniel asked in shock. "How? I did horribly."

"Well, on the basic stuff, yeah, you did. But that fight with the weaponized drones probably counted towards your problem-solving skills."

"What about the 7? What does that stand for?"

"Your overall rank. 7 is actually really impressive, all things considered. Honestly, I would have thought you would end up in the 9's."

"What's the 9's?"

"The lowest rank," Victor said.

Daniel frowned at him.

"What? Come on, man, look around you. You're in a building stuffed to the roof with super-powered freaks."

Daniel laughed at that. "I guess that's true. So what's your rank?"

"2B3, but I'm a cyborg, so I guess you could say that I'm partly cheating," Victor said with a wink. He looked around as the other creatures, monsters, aliens, and humans began making their way out of the Training Center. He looked at Daniel and gestured for him to follow. "Come on. It's chow time!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for the shortness of this particular chapter. I believe the next one is longer. These first three chapters are mostly establishing what all is going on, but the chapter after this one should have more of a building up feel to it. Anyways, enjoy!  
**

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Daniel drummed his fingers against the table, eyes staring off at nothing as, for the first time since he had first awoken, he seriously contemplated his situation. The training exercises were obviously designed to not only discover and understand the skills of each "student," but also to keep the students strong and healthy, which led to one, major question:

"What do they want us for?" Daniel asked, directing his question at Victor, who had been the most knowledgeable regarding the Talent Scouts.

Victor finished devouring a bowl of the same brown mush that Daniel was eating, then looked down at him and shrugged. "No one knows. There are plenty of theories, though. Some people think that they're building an army to take over the universe. Other people think that they're going to sell us as weapons. Some people even think this is some government trying to regulate powers and skills of people that aren't normal. Personally, I think they're building an army, but I couldn't say what for."

"Maybe zombies have taken over the earth and we're the only people that can stop the apocalypse!" Garfield exclaimed excitedly.

Everyone at the table looked at him exasperatedly.

"Oh, so everyone's theories are valid but mine?" Garfield said indignantly. With a sulky expression, he finished off the remainder of the green substance that sat like thick Jell-O on his plate.

"Perhaps this place really is a school," Koriand'r said.

"They wouldn't take our memories and force us to be here if it actually was a school, Kori," Victor replied.

Daniel frowned, having hoped someone would know more about what was going on or why, but moved on from the subject. "Has anyone ever escaped before?"

"Nope," Victor said. "Not even close."

Daniel frowned disappointedly. He had hoped others' attempts at escape could aid him in formulating his own plan, but he couldn't help but think that if no one had even come close, how was he—a normal human amidst an army of monsters, aliens, and superhuman teens—supposed to do any better?

His internal monologue was interrupted by the sound of the speaker overhead.

"_Attention new students. Report to the Wardens at the entrance hall and prepare for Task allocation. All other students report to your Tasks._"

Garfield groaned. "Aw, man! I hate Tasks."

"What's that?" Daniel asked.

"Everyone is required to do work to maintain the facility," Koriand'r said. "For example; it is the responsibility of myself and others to do the cleaning of the dishes after all mealtimes have finished."

"You're a dishwasher?" Daniel asked.

She nodded, looking quite pleased. "Yes. Now, I must go or they will start without me." She turned and enthusiastically left the table.

"That wouldn't be a bad thing, Kori!" Garfield yelled after her, but she appeared to either not hear or him or was ignoring him, because she continued on her merry way, skipping off towards the kitchen.

Daniel watched her with a smile, admiring her positive attitude.

Victor sighed and stood up. "Well, we'd better get going. Dan, you'd better get moving, too. The Freshman are already lining up at the entrance," he said.

Daniel unconsciously cringed at the nickname he had just been given. "Just call me Daniel and, uh, thanks," he said as politely as he could as he stood with the others. He didn't want to make his new friends—who appeared to only address each other with nicknames as a sign of friendship—feel offended, but the unpleasantness of the given nickname would not go away.

Victor looked at him and for a moment Daniel feared that he had insulted him, but the cyborg shrugged dismissively and left.

Daniel separated from the group to join the rest of the freshmen at the main entrance. He was making his way through the moving crowd when something bumped heavily against his shoulder, almost causing him to run into two other teens in front of him. Catching himself before another collision could happen with someone else, he turned to find the source of his near-fall.

A girl with grey skin, large, folded, leathery wings that had been restrained with some sort of strap, and short, white hair with two longer strands tightened into braids stood with her arms crossed, staring him down with all red eyes. She had a look of contempt on her face, although Daniel could not figure out for the life of him why she might be looking at him like that. A few of the students in front and behind her were giving him similar looks, although they continually glanced at her; as though seeking confirmation that they were supposed to be. The group she had surrounded herself with was a frightening-looking bunch; consisting of a figure covered with a white sheet, a short, black-skinned boy with a full head of black hair and a particularly sadistic-looking grin, a tall, green, lizard-like creature, and a huge, hulking mass that looked like a large mound of dirt and grass with red eyes and a mouth.

Daniel swallowed nervously at the looks of disdain they were giving him, unsure as to what he might have done to warrant it. He quickly looked away and ducked his head, worming through the crowds in front of him—aware that their eyes followed the back of his head the whole way—until he had joined the other freshmen at the front entrance. A dozen or so Talent Scouts stood looming over the students before them. Once everyone had gathered, the Talent Scouts began leading them down the halls once more. The walk was brief and before long, all of the freshmen had lined up in another white room, although this one looked more like a fancy office. Six desks faced opposite the door and at each sat an alien preoccupied with the holographic computer screens on their desks.

Daniel waited in line for several minutes before at last, after the half-fox girl in front of him had finished her turn, he stepped up to the desk.

The Talent Scout looked through the holographic screen in front of its face to look at him, eyes narrowing. "5215."

He blinked; surprised that it already knew his number, considering the fact that the alien had found it necessary to scan the bar codes on the backs of all of the other student's necks.

The Talent Scout ignored his perplexed expression and handed him four little suction cups. "Place these at evenly spaced intervals on your forehead."

Daniel looked down warily at the four rubber cups in his hand. Although he had watched everyone ahead of him go through the same process, he found himself hesitating nonetheless.

The Talent Scout stared at him, appearing to grow impatient. "You must comply, or you will be placed in Intensive Control."

Daniel wasn't sure what Intensive Control was, but he also wasn't eager to find out, so with a resigned sigh, he placed the rubber cups on his forehead.

The Talent Scout nodded with approval, pressed a few glowing buttons on the screen before it, then flipped the screen around with a flick of the wrist so that it faced Daniel. "Observe the pictures. Do not look away."

Daniel complied, not removing his eyes from the screen as it began flashing images rapidly, too fast for him to see more than glimpses. He thought he caught sight of tools, some medicine, and possibly a puppy, but he wasn't certain. Random photos flashed in and out of his vision with seemingly no relation to any other. After about two minutes, the images faded and the Talent Scout flipped the screen back to face it again. It pressed a few buttons and then looked at Daniel. "Your Task is maintenance. Follow the Warden to your Task area."

Daniel handed the suction cups back to the Talent Scout and then turned to find his Warden.

The Warden found him first, along with several other teens who had been assigned the same Task. It turned and began leading them through the facility, explaining their Task and how they were going to be distributed.

"Students," it said, "You have each been assigned a portion of the facility that shall be your primary Task. Each portion has been divided into twelve sectors. Each sector shall consist of groups of twenty, which will be divided into subsections in each sector. You will be divided into subsections based on your skill sets."

"How do you know what our skills are if even we don't?" one of the youngest students in the group asked.

"That's what those suction cup things were for, dipshit," said one of the other students, shoving the younger aggressively.

Another of the boy's with black hair and blue eyes snatched the other student's hand. The other student looked at the black haired boy in surprise, looking ready for a fight. "You got a problem?"

"Save your aggression for training exercises, Students," the Talent Scout said, winding its long body to turn around and look at the three students with its small, black eyes.

The black-haired boy released the other student's wrist as though nothing had happened. The other student glared at the black haired boy and although there was a tenseness between the two, the other student said nothing else.

As they went along, he would turn to a few of the students, and have them follow other Talent Scouts to the subsections of their Tasks.

Finally, Daniel and the black haired boy following behind him were separated from the group and escorted away by a different Talent Scout Warden. It led the two boys into a small room filled with various tools and equipment. About twenty other students were bustling about, grabbing tools and equipment and making their way out again.

The two boys were led to the other end of the room where a blue-skinned girl with white, long hair and crystal blue eyes stood gathering tools and placing them into a tool belt. She looked to be in her late teens and Daniel could not help but notice her rather shapely figure.

She looked up as they approached, a frown on her face as though she were angry about something. "Oh, you can't be serious," she groused at the Warden as the alien brought the two boys to her.

The Warden ignored her indignation and gestured at the two boys. "4338, these are your charges, 5125 and 5343."

Daniel glanced at the boy next to him. He was a distinctly somber-looking, raven-haired boy who looked about the same age as Daniel. If the other boy's hair was as messy as Daniel's (and his face not drawn in a look of perpetual anger and concentration) they might have been able to pull off twins. Even the blues of their eyes were the same.

The other boy, 5343, regarded both Daniel and the girl with a glance, never saying a word.

4338s frown deepened. She grabbed a tool belt and tossed it to Daniel, who just barely caught it in his surprise. She then got one of her own and wrapped it around her waist. She walked past the two boys and started heading back down the hall, mumbling bitterly to herself under her breath.

They were all completely silent as they made their way down the halls. There was a distinctively hostile air between the three of them. Finally, after an almost unbearably silent trip across the facility, 4338 led Daniel and the other boy into what looked like the engine room of a boat, except much more advanced, which confirmed Daniel's guess that they had been taken onto a spaceship (and also why no one had managed to escape so far). Despite the more sophisticated appearances of the objects in the room, Daniel was quickly able to identify almost twelve engines, an equal amount of electrical generators, several gearboxes, air compressors and an array of other equipment that led Daniel to believe that they were in a ship. Since he had not spotted a single window since he had been there, it seemed likely.

4338 turned to Daniel and the other boy. "Do either of you know anything about general mechanics and electrical systems?"

Daniel looked around the room, thoughtfully, not entirely sure if he did or didn't. Just because he recognized the objects in the room did not necessarily mean he knew how to operate or repair them. Finally, he shrugged. "I don't really know. I guess we'll have to see," he said, then walked over to the nearest engine, looking over the pressure gauges and its other components.

5343 watched him.

"This one looks okay," Daniel said confidently, then moved on to the next. He inspected it carefully, and 5343 and 4338 watched him. Daniel determined that the second one was also in decent shape.

"Looks like you have a general idea. Good. You two take care of this side and I'll take care of the other side. Try not to bother me," she said, her voice irritated, but Daniel guessed that she was more pleasant than she was trying to let on. Respecting her current, defiant mindset, he nodded and continued working as though she were not there.

She seemed surprised by this, but made no comment. Instead, she turned to work on her side of the room.

Daniel and 5343 spent several hours in what he assumed was the engine room, inspecting everything and recording all of their data on a clipboard for reference the next day. Only once did they come across a malfunctioning system, and Daniel was pleasantly surprised to learn that he _did_ have some knowledge in repairing damaged equipment. 5343, although quiet as Daniel repaired the damaged air compressor, helped equally and was even more skilled in what they were doing than Daniel was. Anytime Daniel came to a problem that he was unsure as to how to solve, 5343 would appear beside him and take care of it, doing it in a manner that Daniel was able to watch.

The boy, helpful and skilled as he was, never spoke a word, even when Daniel tried to engage him in conversation. With each attempt to strike up a conversation, it quickly became clear that 5343 was distrustful of him.

5343 had a steely, calculating look about him. Although he appeared focused on one thing, it quickly became clear to Daniel that 5343 was watching _everything_. At the slightest of movements, 5343 would turn his head slightly towards it, allowing his peripheral vision to observe whatever had drawn his attention. His other senses seemed to be on high alert as well. Daniel could tell that 5343 preferred quiet areas, where he could pick out noises. While Daniel had been inspecting a few particularly loudly hissing pipes along the wall that had sprung a few leaks, 5343 was constantly moving his head about in an attempt to keep an eye on everything around him, since it was too noisy to use hearing as an aid. Daniel imagined that his other senses were just as sensitive.

In addition, he was also quite intelligent. Daniel suspected that, in allowing Daniel to do all of the work, it gave 5343 an opportunity to assess his strengths and weaknesses. Several times, Daniel caught him sneaking around him to his other side or behind him. It wasn't in an attempt to scare him, but just to see if he would notice. Every time Daniel turned to look at him, 5343 would give him a look before turning away.

After three hours' worth of checking systems and repairing damage, 4338 reappeared to take them back to the room Daniel had first met her in, which was similar to a supply closet. To his surprise, she had calmed down quite a bit from their first encounter and even complimented them.

"You did a good job. Everything looked fine when I went over it. If you're asked, though, I was watching you the whole time," she told them as she put away their tool belts with the rest of the students who had completed their Tasks for the day.

"Sure," Daniel said. "So, um… where are we going now?" Daniel asked.

"I'm not leaving yet. I've got some cleaning up I need to do here first before I go. You guys are going to bed, though."

"Okay…." Daniel said, looking back at the hall behind him. "Um… where is that exactly?"

"Follow him. He'll take you where you need to go," 4338 said, pointing at 5343.

Daniel looked back at the other boy, who was already heading off down the hall in an unhurried pace. With a thanks and a wave at 4338, he ran off to follow the other boy down the hall.


	4. Chapter 4

**Before I begin this chapter, I would just like to thank everyone for all of the fantastic reviews and support! I am amazed at the response this has gotten and it has been truly inspirational for me. So thank you all so much!  
**

**In response to a couple of questions asked to reviewers, I did use the name Raven intentionally. I had run into the same confusion as far as her other name, Rachel Roth, and had to do a bunch of research to figure out which was her real name. From what I found, Rachel Roth was a name Raven invented later after joining the Titans, although I'm unclear as to why that was exactly. I might be wrong though. **

**As far as the identity of 5343, I'll just let all of you figure that out. For the other children, some of their identities are revealed, others won't be, and others are characters of my own creation so will not be recognizable. **

**Side note, I have planned out the entire story, beginning to end, and have written half of it out already, so updates will be frequent and consistent for a while. As I get closer to the end of what I've written, updates will slow to once a week, at which point I will let all of you know so that you know I'm not dead. After the updates have caught up with what I already have written out, I'll let you all know that the updates might slow even more. Whatever the case, I will try my best to keep updates consistent and as quick as possible.**

**Thank you all so much for your support! Enjoy the chapter. **

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_Red, red, red._

_Crimson._

_Burning. What's burning? What is that burning? Burnt, charred. What is that smell? Burnt, charred, scorching! Heat!_

_Raining down._

_Falling… falling… falling…_

_Throat burning._

_Faded screaming. Who is screaming? Where is that coming from?_

_Light… too bright. It's awful, it's hideous, no, no, no! Make it stop! Make it go away! It can't be there! God, no, please!_

_Eyes… the eyes! Piercing, burning, screaming eyes!_

_Run._

_Run faster._

_Too late._

_Red, red, red._

_Rage._

_Rage!_

_RAGE!_

Daniel's eyes flew open and he shot up in his bunk, gasping and chest heaving, soaked to the bone with sweat, like he had just returned from a swim. He grabbed his head, trying to stop the spinning sensation and working to calm his frantic breathing.

"You alright, man?"

Daniel looked over at the bunk across from him where Victor lay. The red eye of the cybernetic portion of his head glowed in the dark and Daniel cringed away from it, turning his head away quickly as an overwhelmingly terrified feeling came over him, making his breathing increase again at an erratic pace.

"Daniel?" Victor asked.

"I'm fine," Daniel gasped, shutting his eyes and forcing his breaths through his nose to calm himself down. He placed his hand on his torso, feeling the rise and fall of his own chest begin to steady and decrease. Finally, he turned back around, chancing a glance. Victor's red eye still stared at him in the dark, but the feeling he had had moments ago had vanished.

"Another nightmare?" Victor asked.

At first, Daniel's first instinct was to deny it, as he had been for the past week that he had been there, but when he glanced down at his sweat soaked pajamas, he decided against it. He nodded, assuming that Victor's robotic eye was able to see his movements just fine.

"Is he alright?" a voice said softly from the bunk above Victor's.

"He's fine, Gar."

"I'm fine, really. Just… just a bad dream," Daniel said as reassuringly as he could. After a few seconds, he'd gotten his breathing under control, but was given no time to appreciate it: the buzzer indicating that it was time to wake up began to sound, followed by the sounds of murmurs and groans from the grumpy students from other cells.

Daniel rubbed his eyes and wearily stood up with Victor and Garfield. Following the routine that he had been forced to follow for the past week, a Warden walked in, scanned the three of them and then tossed them out into the line forming.

As Daniel followed the line leading off to the cafeteria, his thoughts drifted for the hundredth time that week to having to endure the same routine day in and day out for however long the Talent Scouts planned to keep them there. It was an unnerving thought and he wasn't keen on letting it happen, but the fact that, of all of the monsters and powerfully creatures and people in the facility, not _one_ had escaped, was discouraging. It was absolutely his intention to look into escape plans, but he would have to go about it carefully and patiently if he had any hope of actually succeeding.

His friends had been having similar ideas.

"Hey, Vic, I know how we're going to escape," Garfield said confidently as they stood in line with their trays, waiting to receive the same mush as the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that...

Vic rolled his eye, but turned his head so that Garfield couldn't see it. "Mm-hmm."

"Yeah, I've got it all figured out. Next time I duel with someone who has fur or fuzz or anything like that, I'm going to turn into a flea, hop on their back when they leave the training pod, and then I'll turn into a fly, find the control center, and set everyone free!"

"Uh-huh…" Victor put his tray into a slot, which took it briefly before returning it, this time filled with brown mush. He took the tray and then turned to Garfield with a sarcastic look. "And how are you going to stay a flea once you leave the training pod?"

Garfield blinked at him. "What?"

"Your suppressor will turn on once you leave the training pod, Gar. As soon as your ride steps outside of the pod, you'll turn back into you," Victor explained.

"Oh…" Garfield said disappointedly, his long, pointed ears drooping.

"You can turn into bugs? I thought it was just animals," Daniel said. Victor had given him a summary of each of their skills and rankings, although he had only gotten a generalization and had not gotten a chance to get any details. However, from the sound of it, Daniel had somehow managed to end up with one of the most powerful groups in the facility.

Garfield looked back at him for a second, then his ears shot up and he grinned. "Oh, yeah! Pick a bug or animal and I can turn into it. I don't normally do bugs, though. They're usually not very helpful."

"Cool," Daniel said appreciatively. "Do you… stay green?"

"Oh yeah, I'm always green. Can't change my color," Garfield said with a grin, placing his tray into the slot and received a white mush in return. "But that's fine by me. Green's my favorite color."

"Why are you green, anyway?"

"I'm an alien," Garfield said.

"From where?" Daniel asked, following after Victor and Garfield and placing his tray into the slot.

Garfield shrugged. "Don't remember. Yet. Raven's helping us get our memories back, but she says we have to do it slowly or we'll get more headaches and migraines and stuff."

"She can do that?" Daniel asked.

"She's not supposed to, but, yeah," Victor said, leading the three of them towards their table. "So don't tell anybody."

Daniel shook his head.

"She could probably help you, too. If you want," Garfield said.

Daniel smiled, but didn't actually answer. Somehow the thought of getting memories back made him anxious, which made him even more hesitant to look into it. He thought it better to wait for them to come back on their own. He wasn't feeling majorly hurried to remember anything.

Suddenly he was roughly slammed into, knocking his shoulder back and nearly throwing the tray out of his hands. His grip tightened so that he wouldn't lose his breakfast and he resisted the urge to retaliate. He already knew who had done it—he had been getting targeted for the past several days by the same person—and didn't want to start anything with someone he barely even knew.

"Hey!" Victor suddenly shouted indignantly. "You got a problem?"

The grey-skinned girl—who had, for some reason, taken Daniel's presence as a personal offense since day one—looked back at them with a glare. "What? _I_ didn't do anything. He walked into _me_. He should apologize. I almost lost my breakfast because of that _wimp_," she said, her voice malicious and scathing. Her allies, who were once again surrounding her, sniggered and grinned mockingly.

Daniel frowned at her exasperatedly. She and her cronies had initially been subtle in their dislike of him. It had mostly consisted of sneers, hushed, mocking words, and bumping him into things as sneakily as they could manage, but after the fourth or fifth day, they had started getting more aggressive. This was the first time that they had bothered him with his friends present.

Victor frowned as though something just occurred to him and suddenly his initial outrage seemed to lessen.

Garfield, however, was fired up with the indignity of the situation. "YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE! I'LL WHOOP ALL OF YOU INTO GOOP! YOU'LL BE SO SORE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO USE THE TOILET FOR THE NEXT YEAR! YOUR MAMAS WON'T RECOGNIZE YOUR UGLY FACES AFTER I'M-"

"Gar," Victor said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder to calm him. "Daniel needs to handle this."

Daniel sighed, not wanting to get into a confrontation. It wasn't that he was afraid: quite the opposite. He had no tolerance for bullies and nothing would have been more satisfying than punching the expression off of the faces of every one of the group targeting him, but he just didn't see the point in it. Whatever reason they had for hating him, fighting them wouldn't change it.

That didn't mean that he was going to roll over, either.

"Sorry," Daniel said.

The grey-skinned girl got a gloating look on her face and looked like she was going to mock him more, but he interrupted her.

"Sorry I didn't shove the tray out of your hands. You look like you could lose a few pounds."

Her red eyes began to glow with rage and her face actually gained some color, eye twitching.

_Burnfirerageragerageruntoolateredredredheatfireredburnburnburnrunthescreamingalltheeyesburnburnragerageragegetaway!_

Daniel's head felt like it had suddenly burst into flame. He let his tray drop to the floor with a loud clatter and he reached up, digging his fingers into his hair and dropping to a knee at the onslaught of flashing memories.

"Dan!" Garfield shouted in alarm, dropping to a knee and trying to remove Daniel's hands from his head to look at him.

As quickly as they had come, the images were gone and Daniel panted heavily on the floor, suddenly feeling a heavy, sharp pain somewhere in his stomach. As soon as he had caught his breath, he waved a hand at Garfield. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he said.

The grey-skinned girl sneered at his knelt form triumphantly. "Look at the little twerp. He can't even stand up for more than a few minutes. What do you think, boys?" she asked, looking at her friends with a smirk, "Should we put him out of his misery?"

Her friends laughed and nodded in agreement, looking at Daniel with hungry gazes.

Victor glared at all of them, taking a step in front of Daniel and Garfield, his expression daring them to come closer.

Suddenly Raven and Koriand'r appeared next to them, also taking up positions in front of their friends.

"Do you have a problem, Wendy?" Raven asked and although her question was as bland as always, she somehow managed to put emphasis on the grey-skinned girl's name.

The girl—Wendy—glared at her, but looked less confident than before. "It's the Gray Lady to you, bitch."

"I don't care," Raven said bluntly. "Just go before you draw even more attention to yourself."

Wendy looked around and noticed that several large Talent Scouts were circling them, waiting for the first sign of movement. She frowned, glanced at Daniel hatefully, and then turned, her anger suddenly diminishing as she said, "No big deal. I'll get the little shit later." She gave her group a meaningful, dark smile and then walked off.

"Yeah, you better run, _Wendy_! Run away, you coward! People should call you the 'Fraidy Lady!" Garfield taunted.

"Stop talking, Garfield," Raven said, turning and looked at Daniel, whose breathing had evened out significantly. She stared at him, although not at his eyes, but at his center, intensely.

"Are you alright?" Koriand'r asked, reached down an arm to help Daniel up.

He nodded, letting her help him to his feet. "Thanks for the help," he said to all of them.

Victor raised a hand dismissively. "Not a problem."

"What was her deal?" Garfield asked, still glaring at the back of Wendy's head as she and her cronies wandered off to their own table.

"They think he's getting special privileges," Victor said.

"Why would they think that? I've been doing what everybody else has been doing!"

"You're a human with no special skills," Victor said, "Word spread somehow that the Talent Scouts decided to let you live. Some people weren't too happy about it. They don't think you belong here."

"Well, I agree with them," Daniel stated bitterly, "but why do they even care? It's not like I'm taking anything of theirs."

"Some people think they've been 'chosen' for something. We call them Devouts. They don't just tolerate being here; they've embraced it. You're not the only one they dislike," Raven said.

Daniel sighed in frustration. Adjusting to the life he had woken to was difficult enough without making enemies for simply being too normal. He looked down at the tray on the floor, highlighted by a brown splatter of mush. He reached down to pick it up, but Koriand'r gently placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Do not worry about the mess, Daniel. I will clean this up. Please, go and get yourself more breakfast."

"I've got it, its fine," Daniel said, but she raised her hand and wouldn't hear another word from him.

"I must insist. Please, we will be waiting for you."

He smiled at her gratefully and then went off to get more breakfast. He observed the Talent Scouts watching him, but tried to act like he didn't notice. Shortly, he returned to the table where his friends had already resumed their breakfast.

"I am sorry your day has started so badly," Koriand'r said, "But I am sure it will be much better!"

"If it turns out better than last week, then you're probably right," Daniel said.

"_Attention new students: report to the west entrance to the Assessment Center and follow the Wardens. All other students, report to the Enrichment Center._"

Garfield looked up, scratched his head in thought, and then beamed. "Hey, Dan! You've been here a week, right?"

Daniel nodded. "Yeah. And please stop calling me that."

"You don't have to go to the Assessment Center anymore!"

Daniel perked up at that. "Really?"

Victor clapped him on the shoulder companionably. "Hey, yeah. I almost forgot. Freshman only have to go to the Assessment Center for the first week. After that, it's off to the Enrichment Center with the rest of us."

"What _is_ the Enrichment Center, anyway?" Daniel asked.

"You're about to find out," Victor said as the four of them stood. Daniel followed the group as they made their way with the rest of the students towards the second entrance that he had never been to before, which stood opposite the first.

This second group was apparently acutely aware of the freshmen that were moving up and had no qualms with giving each one they spotted a leer or a dangerous grin. Daniel, on the other hand, noticed that his friends had taken very obviously defensive positions around him, not allowing anyone easy access to him. He once even caught Koriand'r glaring at a rather large alligator-like creature. To his great surprise, the creature backed down and refused to look in their group's direction.

The crowd made its way into another large hangar similar to the Training Center, except this room was lined as far as the eye could see with reclined chairs of all different sizes, customized to their recipient.

Koriand'r placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder and smiled at him when he turned his face to her. "Come, Daniel. Your seat is beside mine," she said, leading past the long lines of seats.

They walked for quite a ways; almost to the very end of the room before they finally got to their seats.

"This one is yours and this one is mine," Koriand'r said, pointing to the chair to the left of hers.

Daniel looked at it and frowned. It was perfectly shaped to his measurements, but it looked like a demented dentist's chair, with the exceptions of ankle, wrist and chest cuffs. At the head was the metal skeleton of a helmet with prongs on the sides and an empty square shape where the eyes should be. Daniel gulped when he saw it and looked over at Koriand'r uncertainly.

"Do not worry. The bindings are only used the first time… and for those who do not respond well afterward," she said with a reassuring voice, but her words did little to comfort him.

He watched her settle into her chair, slightly relieved to see that the bindings did not immediately clasp around her, but still glanced at his own chair warily.

"_Students, Enrichment will now commence. Take your seats._"

Daniel sighed and, knowing that it was unavoidable, climbed up into his chair and settled in. As Koriand'r had said, the cuffs clasped around him as soon as he had settled. He held back the yelp of fear and watched nervously as the helmet lowered onto his head. The square turned out to be a projector screen, which buzzed and turned on as soon as the headpiece had lowered. The prongs at the sides fell inward; down towards his eyes. Panicked that they were not stopping, he struggled and tried to turn his head, but the helmet would not permit him.

"Do not be frightened, Daniel," Koriand'r told him. "They are to keep your eyes open." He sighed and took a deep breath to calm himself. Resigning himself to the inevitable, he allowed the prongs to latch onto his eyelids, which was only slightly uncomfortable, and keep his eyes open as the screen whirred-

-"Daniel? We are done, Daniel."

Daniel blinked several times, staring at the face leaning over him worriedly. It took him a moment to realize that it was Koriand'r and even longer to comprehend what she was telling him.

"W-what?" he asked, sitting up. He winced at the slight headache he had somehow gotten and looked around him as, slowly, realization began to dawn on him. It didn't take long for him to look back at the seat, stunned. He had been released from his restraints and the headpiece had retracted. "W-w-wait… that's… that's it?"

Koriand'r smiled happily. "Yes!"

He blinked at her. "But… I _just_ sat down…"

"Actually, you have been sitting there for two hours," she informed him.

"But… how?"

"It is like you are sleeping, but you are learning," Koriand'r told him. "Raven says that it has to do with something on the un-conscience."

His brow furrowed at her in confusion. "What?"

"I am sorry, my friend, but I do not do well in explaining. Victor understands better than I."

Daniel nodded and hopped off of the chair, putting a hand to his head when his headache pulsed. "Where are we going now?"

"We must go to training now," Koriand'r said, leading him back down the hall that, he felt, they had just walked down moments ago.

Daniel and Koriand'r met up with the others outside of the entrance, standing in line with the rest of the students.

"Hey, Dan…iel," Garfield said, catching himself when he almost used the nickname he had been trying to give Daniel for the past week. "What'd you think of Enrichment?"

"It felt… short," Daniel replied.

"Yeah, nice right?"

"What does Enrichment do anyway?" Daniel asked.

Victor, Garfield, and Koriand'r looked to Raven.

Daniel looked at Raven expectantly and she looked at him. As per usual, her face lacked any sign of emotion or interest, but her eyes spoke differently. Since he had met her, she had barely spoken to him except when she found it necessary. The only sign that she seemed the slightest bit aware of his presence was when he caught her looking at him. It wasn't like she was staring, but more like she was looking at something beyond the obvious. It unnerved him every time she gave him that look, but he never questioned her about it. He wanted to figure _her_ out a bit more first.

She was giving him that look, but was hiding it better than usual; most likely because she knew the others were looking at her as well.

"It's similar to subliminal messaging," Raven explained with the same dull tone she always had when she spoke. "They feed images into our subconscious mind. No one knows yet what those images are or what they're supposed to accomplish."

"But they're basically teaching us… something?"

"They could be teaching us, or they could be feeding us false memories. There isn't any way to know for sure," Raven said.

"Why would they do that?" Daniel asked.

She shrugged and although the gesture suggested that she lacked any concern, he could see otherwise in her eyes.

* * *

**I apologize if the chapters have been slow up to this point, but rest assured, things pick up exponentially in the next chapter. Thank you all again! Next chapter will be up on Friday.  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**I had the hardest time deciding how to break up this chapter. On one hand, I wanted it to be a little longer than my usual ones, to try and slowly work up to regularly longer chapters, but it just didn't feel like it flowed well, so it is about the average. So sorry about that. **

**This chapter will have a moment of switched perspectives, which I hope flows decently. I considered doing the entire story through Daniel's viewpoint, but there are a few scenes (now and in the future), that I think hold more sway being seen from an outsider's perspective. Hopefully it isn't a jarring transition. **

**Anyway, thank you all again for the lovely reviews and I hope you enjoy this next chapter as much as the others.**

* * *

Slowly, the crowded line leading into the Training Center began to unclog and Daniel made his way in with his friends, eventually having to separate from the group to get to his dome. Victor accompanied him since their domes were in the same direction. When they got to Daniel's dome, however, both of them stopped.

"Uh… Vic? Please tell me that that second number is just… the time or something," Daniel said, staring up at the dome. As usual, the number 5125 glowed in bright blue on the dome's glass, but, today, another number was accompanying it.

Victor looked up at the screen with his mouth agape. "No way. That's got to be an error. Daniel, do you see a Talent Scout nearby? Someone's got to fix this…"

"What _is_ this?" Daniel asked.

"The second number is another student. The dome has assigned you a dueling partner," Victor said, walking off determinedly in search of a Talent Scout. Daniel followed after him, having to jog to keep up with the cyborg's pace.

"Wait, wait, I thought you said that I would have to duel eventually anyway."

"Yeah… after a month of being here," Victor said, "but that's not the biggest problem."

"What's a bigger problem than being paired up with a dueling partner two weeks before I'm supposed to be?"

"You're paired up with someone outside of your rank… they're tougher than you, Daniel. Way tougher. You won't win that fight," Victor said.

"Who? Who'd I get paired up with?" Daniel asked, then stopped abruptly when he heard a wicked chuckle from behind him.

"Told you I'd get you."

Daniel turned to look at Wendy, who stood with her clawed hands on her hips, a look of satisfaction on her face. He glared at her, hands unconsciously tightening into fists.

Victor stopped mid-march and looked at her. "What did you do?" he asked her threateningly.

She raised her hands and shrugged. "I didn't do anything. This is straight from the top," she informed the cyborg, although her eyes never left Daniel, her look promising violence.

"You're twice his rank," Victor said.

Again, she shrugged. "I don't make the rules," she said, then turned to head off to the dome, grinning at Daniel and adding, "Meet you there, pipsqueak."

Daniel watched her walk away with wide eyes as he thought about what he was about to have to do.

Victor, however, growled in anger, "That bitch..." he muttered heatedly under his breath as he turned around again to continue looking for a Talent Scout.

"_All students: find your designated training zone and commence training._"

Daniel looked up as the voice came over the loud speaker and frowned. He turned and grabbed Victor's arm before he could go.

"Forget it, Vic. I'll figure it out."

"No, you won't. She's got a vendetta against you. If she gets a chance to do serious damage… or worse… she'll do it. She was probably lying about it coming from the top," Victor insisted and tried again to walk away, but Daniel's hold on his arm remained firm.

Daniel shook his head. "We're both going to get into trouble unless we get to our domes. Don't worry about it. I think I can keep out of her reach until the session's over."

Victor frowned at him and looked like he wanted to argue, but stopped himself. "Just be careful, man."

Daniel nodded and gave him a cocky smile to reassure him and headed off to his dome. As he approached the dome, where he could see Wendy was already warming up, he flexed his hands over and over as he prepared himself, trying to feel as confident as he looked. He made his way up the steps into the dome, listening to the entrance hiss shut behind him. He glanced over at the equipment selection screen by the door, just out of habit, but found that it was offline.

He made his way to the half of the dome Wendy was not occupying. He knew she was watching him with that same, predatory expression, but he did not look at her until he had reached the center of the dome. When he did finally look at her, he had built up his confidence enough to give her a defiant glare.

She grinned at him, revealing a thin pair of fangs. She then raised her arm and pointed a clawed finger at him. "Have any last words before I end your pathetic little existence?"

"Yeah, sorta. It's actually more of a question. Are you a boy or a girl? I mean, the name says girl, but the hair and well… everything else… says boy," Daniel said.

She glowered at him and suddenly stretched out her leathery wings. "You're going to regret that, you little shit!"

"_Training will commence in three… two…_"

Wendy didn't wait for one. She flew up into the air and launched herself at him, claws reaching out to grab at him.

Daniel eyes widened at her speed and his fists clenched as he readied himself. He waited for her to get close and then leaped out of her way, quickly bolting towards the other side of the dome as fast as his legs could carry him.

Wendy slowed her assault before she rammed into the glass wall, turning over in the air to face him again. She gave him a fanged grin and flew in the same spot for a moment, watching him. Then, licking her lips, she flew up into the air and dove for him.

She was faster the second time and Daniel was barely able to dive beneath her. She whirled in the air and swiped her hand as he stood up from his roll, slashing his back her claws.

He gritted his teeth at the stinging pain, but kept running for the other side of the dome. As soon as he reached it, breathing heavily as adrenaline pumped through his veins, he looked up and gasped when he saw Wendy hovering over him, flexing her clawed hand at him tauntingly.

"What's the matter, runt? Too fast for you?"

Eyes widening in panic, he tried to back away from her, but before he could do anything, her hand shot out and latched into his hair, scraping the skin of his scalp. She smacked his head against the wall and then tossed him like a rag doll across the floor. His shoulder skidded against the floor for several feet before his body was abruptly stopped by a foot against his back.

Wendy laughed wickedly and kicked him roughly in the back, turning him over and then stomping on his stomach.

He grunted in pain and tried to kick at her from where he lay on his back, completely at her mercy, but she grabbed his foot, sinking her claws into the fabric of his shoe and then further into the skin of his foot. He struggled, trying to free himself, but his squirming only made her tighten her grip. She tossed him up into the air, laughing when he screamed in panic. She flew up above him before he could hit the roof and then drove her fist down into his abdomen, pushing him back down to the floor.

Daniel gasped in pain as his back once again slammed against the floor and he thought he could hear the sound of several cracks. The sharp, stabbing pains in his back confirmed his suspicions that something had fractured, if not broken completely.

For one horrible moment, he realized just how bad of a situation he had found himself in. Her speed and strength were far superior to his own and he had no chance of avoiding her for two hours. He hadn't even managed to do it for fifteen minutes. He was running out of options, but wasn't about to allow her to continue to toy with him.

Feeling a rush of determination, he gritted his teeth against the pain and suddenly threw a punch that, to his surprise, actually connected. He got her under the chin as she bent over him, stopping the maniacal laughter that had been bubbling up from her throat. She cried out, mostly out of surprise than pain, and stumbled backwards off of him.

Seizing the opportunity, Daniel struggled up, coughing as he did so and wrapping an arm around his midsection when a distinctively sharp pain flared in his chest. Another stabbing pain at his back nearly dropped him back to the floor and he faltered, whimpering and wincing. He wiped away the trickle of blood streaming down his mouth with his wrist and shakily stood up, swaying where he stood, but still managing to glare at the gray-skinned girl, who was quickly recovering.

She shook her head and glared daggers at him. "Come here, you little fuck!" she screamed at him. She lifted off of the ground again and launched at him, fist poised behind her, red eyes fixated on him with absolute hate.

Daniel watched her, doubled over and unable to do a thing, with wide eyes as suddenly everything seemed to slow down. He blinked, confused, looking around as sound faded and the glass of the dome began to get torn away like paper slowly peeling off of a wall.

He looked at Wendy, watching in bewilderment and an ever increasing, unexplainable sense of fear as her body began to fade away, getting pulled into the depths of a dark green and black smoke that seemed to be pouring out from everywhere and nowhere.

She was still coming at him. He knew that, but as she slowly, slowly faded away and the world around got swallowed up by smoke, he began to feel a cold creep up from his core.

The feeling frightened him and he tried to banish it, but it continued to rise out of him, making its way up his chest, down his hips, up over his head, down over his feet...

He felt his consciousness being pulled away and something else taking his place at the forefront of his mind. It gave him chills as he felt it put on his skin like a suit, but he felt so tired, too tired to fight it. He let it, watching from the sidelines as it turned his eyes to the only thing that remained in the swirl of green and black smoke that had replaced the dome; the red eyed monster across the room.

_Screamingfiresmokeflameburningruninevitabledeadalldeadnonono…_

_Rage._

Fire erupted from all around in red, blue, and green flames. The smell of smoke and ash filled his lungs. From the cold core of his center, anger, pain, rage, hatred, and fear began to claw out from within, sinking its claws into his mind and coiling around the thing that had taken him over.

_Flame and fire and burning and-_

_Rage!_

Through the smoke, clouds, and flame, all Daniel could see from the eyes that were no longer his were glowing, blood red eyes and a fanged grin. Echoing laughter came from all around him, resounding in his ears like a death toll. A hand dripping with blood reached out from the smoke… reaching for him… reaching…

_Red eyes and laughter and hate. All his fault…_

_RAGE!_

* * *

Wendy released her fist, ready to knock the boy off of his feet, but instead of connecting with the flesh of his face, her fist smashed into what felt like a steel wall. She shrieked in pain and surprise and tried to draw her hand back, only to find that a glowing, white-gloved hand had taken hold of it in a vice-like grip. Her eyes widened in confusion. She looked at Daniel's face, but instead of seeing the vibrant blue his eyes should have been, the color had been replaced by a startling, luminescent, electric green.

Wendy stared, mouth agape in amazement at the boy before her. At first, she was awed by the sight of his glowing form, the hair that had been raven-black not moments ago now a crisp, snow white. Even his skin had taken on a slight change, turning to a darker tone than it had been seconds before. It was not until she met his eyes did she truly understand the position she was now in. His eyes, the glowing green eyes unlike any she had ever seen, had fixed on her with a look that sent shivers down her spine and made her blood curdle. His expression was blank, almost like his soul had been removed, but his eyes displayed a hatred and anger that, for one moment, stole her breath away.

It was then she realized that she was not looking at something beautiful; she was looking at something to be feared.

Eyes widening in increasing alarm, she yanked back to try and free her hand again, expecting her strength to surpass the human she had been thoroughly beating, but instead nearly pulled her own arm out of its socket. The boy did not even sway at her struggles.

Fear gripping her now, she stared wide-eyed as, without a word, he flicked his wrist forward. The strength behind the small gesture was enough to send her flailing across the room like a mere rag doll.

She had not even stopped rolling before he was on her again, aiming a fist for her face. She screamed in fear and rolled away, allowing his fist to pass over her and slam with a resounding, sharp thud into the wall behind her, causing the whole dome to groan at the power behind the hit. She scrambled to her feet, looking back in absolute terror as his emotionless green eyes followed her.

Desperate to escape the gaze of the boy and the certain agony that she would face were she to fight him, she spread her wings and lifted up into the air to evade the boy, certain that she could keep out of his reach until the training session was over. However, to her horror, he rose off of the ground with her, chasing her down with outstretched hands. She dodged him, but only barely. Quickly, she started zigzagging around the dome, desperation and rising fear urging her to fly faster and more frantically to escape the boy, whose rage was causing him to glow, greener and brighter, as she continued to elude him.

She was unable to keep up the pathetic game of tag, however. Not even a minute into chasing her around did the boy latch onto her heel, yanking her back. An audible crack sounded and she screamed in pain as the bone of her ankle was crushed in the grip of the glowing boy. She struggled, trying with all of her might to pull away, but the boy's strength had reached a level that was far superior to her own. He pulled her down until he was able to switch his grip from her heel to her neck, immediately cutting off the flow of oxygen to her lungs. She gasped, clawing at him in a frantic haze of panic and terror, but it was as though the boy could feel nothing that she did to him. Her claws barely penetrated the top layer of skin and only left pitiable, thin lines of green goo that vanished within seconds.

Suddenly the boy launched himself downward, holding her at arms-length beneath him and driving her neck into the floor below. She let out a strangled gurgle, her back bruising and her head smacking the floor hard enough for her to see stars dancing amid the black that was beginning to engulf her vision. There was something warm, wet, and sticky now seeping out of the back of her head and as it increased in volume, she became more and more dizzy, her vision blurring.

Still, the boy did not falter or hesitate. His expression remained empty, but his eyes never changed from the animalistic look of absolute loathing and rage as he tossed her around this way and that. He tossed her against the glass walls of the dome, threw her up into the air and punched her as she came back down. Endlessly, he continued his assault until she was heap of blood, broken bones, and black and blue bruises.

Then something changed.

Wendy lay limply on the floor where she had been carelessly tossed, coughing and gagging on the blood in her throat, fighting to remain conscious and defend herself despite the agony her body was in, when the boy suddenly screamed.

It was such a hair-raising sound that it completely roused Wendy from her near unwanted slumber. She looked up to where he was hovering in the air, watching his green eyes go wide all of a sudden. He grabbed the hair on either side of his head, releasing a racking scream of terror that sent tremors down her spine. He screamed and screamed and screamed, body shaking as though he were in the middle of an earth quake. His body curled in and he removed his hands from his head, fingers flexed tightly as suddenly two pairs of glowing, green, smoking orbs formed on each hand, growing in size and vibrancy with each passing second. All the while, he screamed frenziedly.

His hands shook, and she watched in despair as he then pointed the glowing electric orbs at her.

He fired.

Wendy shut her eyes, believing her life was about to be ended. She heard the blast hit with a tumultuous crash and crackle, but was surprised when it did not hit _her. _Carefully, she peeked her eyes open to see a huge, green beam blasting the glass dome a few inches above her head, green, almost water like substances splashing and dancing off of the wall in flashes of light and electricity. She glanced at him, but the boy did not seem to notice or care that he had missed her. His eyes were wide, but unseeing, and he was screaming almost inaudibly now as he let the blast build and get stronger, taking up a third of the dome's size as it struck its side. The glass creaked and strained against the pressure, even beginning to crack under the powerful onslaught.

The rest of the students in the Training Center had stopped fighting long before to watch in awe as the entire room was filled with a neon green light.

The Talent Scouts had been trying to subdue the boy since his vicious attack on Wendy, but no amount of electric volts sent into his system had any effect. It did not even appear to register with the boy that he was being electrocuted by the bio-chip in his wrist. They had continuously raised the voltages higher and higher until it became apparent that only a _deadly_ amount was going to have any affect. Finally, they turned the boy's bio-chip to the highest voltage.

Although it was unclear as to whether or not it was the bio-chip or if it was simply that he had run out of steam, finally the white-haired boy's eyes closed, the blast slowly died and diminished in his hands and he dropped to the floor, two white rings forming around his center. By the time he had hit the ground, the green of his eyes had returned to blue.

* * *

**It's very fortunate that this was the chapter that happened to be posted on a Friday, because that means there's a shorter wait time between this one and the next chapter. See you all Monday.  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello again. I recently had someone ask me if Rachel Roth was Raven's real name, and I thought I knew, but it was bugging me, so I looked it up again and, once again, got rather conflicting answers. One site said that Rachel is her real name and another said she made it up later and now I'm just sticking with Raven just because I don't want to go back and change it because I've already posted five chapters. So apologies for that confusion. **

**There is a bit of a time break that happens further along in this chapter that was a bit of a difficult transition, so if you find yourself confused, I have a summary at the bottom to give a general explanation on the time-frame here. **

**Enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

He went in and out of conscious, hearing voices and seeing blurry images for brief moments before fading away again. Eventually, his eyes slowly opened, looking around at the indistinct images and shapes. For the most part, all he could see was white, but there was a dark, grey and purple standing slightly below and in front of him.

"_Az…ar…ath… met…ri…on…zin…thos… az…ar…ath…met…rio…n…zinth…os…"_

The words hit his ears softly, barely sounding more like more than a whisper, but slowly, the words and the figure in front of him became clear.

Raven stood behind a pane of glass, eyes shut, muttering, "Azarath metrion zinthos… azarath metrion zinthos… azarath metrion zinthos…"

He looked at her blearily, watching her lips move as he tried to remember what had happened to him and why he felt so weak and tired. He tried to stretch his arms, only to discover that they were restrained above him on either side of his head.

"Don't let them see you're awake," Raven suddenly said before he had even begun to struggle. "Close your eyes."

Daniel blinked at her with surprise, but complied, letting his eyelids rest over his eyes. "What happened to me?" he asked, opening his mouth as little as he could while still making sure that he could be heard by her.

"You transformed," Raven answered.

Daniel eyes unconsciously squeezed as he tried to recall the memories that eluded him.

_Ragerageragerageragerage…_

He gasped.

"Leave them. Those memories will return to you soon."

Daniel felt the memories and sounds—and the tumultuous emotions that came with them—fade away again and relaxed. "Where am I, Raven?"

"The Assessment Center," Raven answered, "They're reevaluating you."

_He felt his consciousness being pulled away and something else taking his place at the forefront of his mind. It gave him chills as he felt it put on his skin like a suit, but he felt so tired, too tired to fight it. He let it, watching from the sidelines as it turned his eyes to the only thing that remained in the swirl of green and black smoke that had replaced the dome; the red eyed monster across the room._

He felt himself shivering as he remembered the raw emotions that had taken him over. He knew he had been fighting something; something that had felt inherently _evil_, but now he could remember that the malicious laughter he had been hearing had actually been terrified screams. And the red eyes that had provoked that uncontrollable hatred from somewhere within him had not been those of a monster; they had been…

"Don't-" Raven started, but she was too late.

Daniel's eyes shot open in horror. "Is she okay?!"

For the first time since waking up, he now noticed all of the Talent Scouts at the far end of the room, huddling together as though trying to keep warm. At his outburst, all of their heads turned to him and he swallowed nervously. He looked around again, identifying the pod that he had been placed in a week ago that the Talent Scouts had used to test him, except this time it had restraints on his wrists, ankles, and waist. There were five wires connected by little suction cups on his head and there was a needle and cord sticking out of the crook of his left elbow.

"Cooperate to the best of your ability," Raven said to him in hushed tones, "But anything they haven't witnessed themselves, they don't need to know."

"What does that mean?" he whispered back, but she didn't get a chance to answer him. The dozen or so Talent Scouts walked up to the pod, looking at his vitals and staring in at him with an intense curiosity.

He shied away from their stares, feeling vulnerable and confused. He wasn't certain what had happened to him and the fact that he was not being given a chance to figure it out for himself before getting scrutinized was frustrating.

The Director, to Daniel's surprise, was among the group of Talent Scout scientists and looked positively pleased. She walked up to Daniel's pod, smiling proudly at him.

"I knew there was more to you than there appeared, but I could _never_ have anticipated just how magnificent you were!" she exclaimed excitedly.

Daniel glared at her. "What happened to Wendy?"

The Director frowned at him, her expression suddenly becoming angry. "How do you know her name, 5125?"

Daniel swallowed and resisted the urge to glance over at Raven. Instead, he deepened his glare. "What happened to her?"

Her frown deepened and she turned to the scientist next to her. "Have you determined anything new about his physiology?"

The Talent Scout, who Daniel recognized from his first day due to the silver pendant on the collar of his coat, shook his head. "I am afraid not. Although we have determined where the source of his power comes from, we cannot get it to come out of its dormant state. Until he is actively using his power, we will be unable to get any data from it."

"Have you established-"

Anger and frustration suddenly bubbled up from his center and, without any regard to the consequences, he shouted, "What happened to her?!"

The scientists all went wide eyed, looking to the Director uncomfortably.

The Director, however, did not appear fazed by Daniel's outburst. She looked at him, instead, with interest. "She needed a great deal of medical attention, but she will be alright, given time. That is the last time you will interrupt me."

The threat was clear, but it didn't have any effect on Daniel. He glared at her, no hint of fear or concern in his eyes.

She looked at him, looking once again proud, before turning her attention back to the scientist. "Have you determined any methods to trigger it?"

"Nothing concrete, Director, although we did make several observations that may help in that regard. After reviewing the footage of his training exercise," the Talent Scout began, gesturing for one of the other aliens to bring him a table where a holographic screen was displaying footage of Daniel's training silently, "we have determined that his powers did not activate upon immediate danger, or he would have used them immediately upon the duel's start. This led to several theories. It could have been a reaction to emotion, or a certain level of adrenaline, intense physical trauma… You see here that 2743 damaged backbone, and three ribs cracked upon impact here." The Talent scouted gestured to the screen of the footage reaffirmed his words.

Daniel, too, watched the footage silently, mouth agape, eyes frozen to the screen when he watched the holographic version of himself suddenly form two white rings of light at his center, which traveled up his body and transformed him into… something. Whatever it was that he had changed into, it terrified him and he could not stop his limbs from shaking as he watched the white-haired version of himself on the screen begin to beat Wendy without mercy or care.

"It could even have been that he did not feel his powers necessary to the challenge until his physical being was seriously threatened."

"The emotional and chemical reactions could easily be synthesized, could they not?" the Director asked impatiently.

"A simple computer simulation could have the potential to satisfy the parameters necessary, although I would advise saving that as a last resort, as it could have adverse effects on his psyche," the scientist answered.

"None of that will work," Raven suddenly spoke, interrupting the Talent Scout boldly.

One of the scientist scowled at her, then looked at the Director. "Director, why is this student here?"

"I requested her presence. She has empathetic powers that I thought would be useful. Now, kindly open the pod."

"But Director, we are not entirely sure that the boy is stable-" the scientist protested, but the Director raised her hand and silenced him.

With a respectful nod, the scientist pressed a button on the keypad on the glass of pod and it opened.

The Director looked down at a brace on her wrist with a small screen, pressed a few buttons, and then looked down at Raven patiently. "What do you glean from him?"

Raven did not hesitate to walk up to Daniel's suspended form and place a hand on the core of his stomach. Daniel grit his teeth at the surprising, icy, sharp pain that flared at her touch, squeezing his eyes as he tried to ignore it. She either did not notice or was unconcerned with his reaction. She left her hand there and closed her eyes for several seconds, turning her head slightly as though she were straining to hear something.

"There are two sides of him. They were connected, but something broke the bond and he's been split in half," she said slowly. "The other part of him is powerful, but in pain."

"What kind of pain?" the Director asked.

"I don't know. I don't think he remembers…"

"Director, the memory wipe should have taken care of him," the scientist said.

"Obviously that didn't work," Raven remarked dryly.

The scientist looked deeply troubled by that, but said nothing more, instead looking Daniel over with a critical eye.

"What do you think, then, 1854?" the Director asked.

"I think something happened during training that threatened to make him remember something," Raven answered. "You're not going to be able to awaken his powers without unleashing that rage, too. If you try and force it, it will all come out at once and you won't be able to control him."

"Nonsense," one of the Talent Scout scientists protested. "The bio-chip was able to stop him."

"Maybe. Maybe not," Raven stated, then glanced at the screen that was on a loop of Daniel's dual with Wendy. She looked at the scientist again seriously. "But either way, without his human half keeping him in check, he'll be much harder to handle."

"What do you suggest, 1854?" the Director asked her.

"Until he's able to gain control of his powers, he _will_ kill people. Without anything holding him back, it's only a matter of time. But if you give him his memories, you'll give him the tools he needs to get his powers under control. Whatever memory is causing him this much distress, he needs to face it before he can move forward from it."

"And you?" she asked, addressing the scientist with the pendant, "What is your recommendation?"

The Talent Scout frowned slightly. "My colleagues believe that we can entice a transformation from him. We can modify the pods to contain him long enough to gather some essential data before sedating him. "

"Do you believe that will work?"

The Talent Scout hesitated. "I am uncertain."

The Director nodded. "I want you to dedicate the rest of today to triggering and _controlling_ 5125's powers by any means necessary. If the day should go by and you are unable to produce any positive results, then both ideas will be applied and 5125's Enrichment time shall be replaced. One of those hours is yours to continue your attempts to awaken his powers. The other shall be given to 1854 to try her method, under supervision of course."

Daniel glanced at Raven, who frowned at the Director's words. He furrowed his brow at her, wondering what about that arrangement was not good enough. It wasn't as though he was that thrilled about the arrangement himself, but she seemed actively angry about it.

The Director looked down at Raven. "Thank you, 1854, for your valuable input. You will be called upon should need of you arise again tomorrow. For now, however, rejoin the other students. I believe Tasks shall begin in fifteen minutes."

Raven looked at Daniel one last time before turning and leaving the room without a word.

The Director watched her leave for a moment before turning back to Daniel, who glared at her again. She then spoke, addressing the scientist with the pendant. "You may keep him up late, if necessary, but ensure he gets adequate sleep."

"Yes, Director," the Talent Scout answered with a bow of its head at her.

The Director turned and left the room.

Once she had gone, the scientists all gathered together, conferring about where to begin for several minutes. Finally, the other Talent Scouts looked at the lead scientist, waiting for orders. The head Talent Scout pressed the button on the side of Daniel's pod, closing it again, then turned on the screen on the glass, frowning deeply and looking indecisive. Finally, after several seconds of thought, it turned to its colleagues. "Begin stress inducement."

Daniel's chest tightened anxiously and he leaned forward as much as the restraints would allow, watching the Talent Scout press a few buttons of the glass, trying to determine what it was doing. Then his eyes went wide, pupils contracting into tiny black orbs as his body was suddenly assaulted by tiny, fiery needles that seemed to stab him everywhere at once, eliciting grunts and gasps of surprise and pain from his throat. He twisted and writhed in his bonds as electricity coursed through his body, making him convulse and tremble from the extreme pain.

The Talent Scouts watched, waiting for any change in his physiology, but after several minutes of watching Daniel struggle, writhe, and shout, the scientist upped the voltage.

Daniel screamed.

* * *

"Daniel? Come on, dude. Wake up. You're starting to scare us. Dude!"

Daniel's eyes snapped open and he shot up in his bed, screaming in alarm and flailing his arms in a haphazard panic. "Get away!" he shouted.

Garfield hopped away from his bed in alarm. "Whoa, dude, easy, it's me!"

Daniel, breathing heavily, looked across the dark room at the wide-eyed faces of his friends.

"You alright, man?" Victor asked.

Daniel swallowed, running a hand through his crazy, disheveled mess of hair and nodded. "You don't… have to… keep… checking up… on me," Daniel said between pants, chest heaving. "I told you… they're just… nightmares."

"No, man," Victor said, looking at Daniel's unusually pale skin and at the dark bags beneath his tired eyes, "That wasn't like your normal nightmares."

Daniel put his head in the safety of his palms, knees tucked to his chest. "I'm fine. I'm just tired, that's all."

"You're not fine," Victor said. "They keep torturing you and expecting you to just go to bed like it was no big deal, but it wasn't. It's made your nightmares worse."

"Dude, you were screaming bloody murder and then just suddenly _stopped_. You even stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. I thought… I thought you died…" Garfield said, rubbing the back of his neck, ears folded downwards.

"It's getting out of hand. You're starting to unravel," Victor said worriedly.

"Well, what do you want me to do?!" Daniel snapped, lifting his head from his hands to stare at them angrily. "What am I supposed to do? Ask them to _stop_? I can't do anything! They can do whatever the hell they want to me for as long as they want and I can't do a damn thing about it!"

Garfield's ears fell even further downward as a hurt expression came over his face. "Daniel… we're your friends. We just… we wanna help."

Daniel's angry expression slowly began to fade into a look of guilt. He sighed and ruffled his hair agitatedly. "I know… I'm sorry. I'm… I'm just tired."

"Don't worry about it," Victor said. "You're under a lot of stress. All we meant was that, if you need to talk to someone, we're both here."

Daniel smiled. "Thanks."

Victor nodded.

Daniel laid back down, trying to get back to sleep, but he knew he wouldn't. Since the first session at the Assessment Center two days ago, it had become harder for him to get to sleep and stay asleep. Usually when was awoken by nightmares, that was it. He couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. This night was no exception.

Morning couldn't have come sooner, and he was quick to get out of bed and follow the long line into the cafeteria. It wasn't a crowded walk, as it had been the first week he had arrived, which was nice in that he wasn't getting squished by creatures much bigger than he was, but bad because he knew _why _no one would get near him. Since his duel with Wendy, the other students, where possible, had made an obvious effort to avoid him. Some did not even dare look him in the eye. It wasn't just because of what had taken place with Wendy, either. News had spread of the Director's interest in him, and that scared the students more than any of the other strange circumstances and events that seemed to have surrounded Daniel since his arrival.

Although the other students treated him with more awareness and—in some cases—fear, his friends' treatment of him was the same as always. He was grateful for it; he wanted as much normalcy as he could get.

"So, guys, guess what happened to me last night?!" Garfield asked with glee, cheeks rising into a big smile as they all sat eating breakfast that morning.

"You fell off your bed again?" Raven asked.

Garfield's excitement was not deterred by her comment, because he only grinned bigger at her, begging her with his eyes to ask. When she didn't, he told them all anyway. "Nooo… I remembered last night! Everything! And from now on, I want to be called-"

"Don't say your hero name here, Gar," Victor whispered, putting a hand over the green alien's mouth to stop him from speaking further. "It's one thing to know our names. The TS's could overlook that. But knowing our hero names is another."

Garfield's ears fell sadly. "Aw."

"Do you all remember everything before this?" Daniel asked.

The four of them nodded.

Daniel's brow rose in surprise. "All of you?"

Koriand'r nodded. "Yes. Garfield was the only one who did not remember until today. Well done, Garfield!" she exclaimed happily, clapping her hands for him.

"So you guys were-?" Daniel started, but Victor shushed him.

"Yes," Victor said in hushed tones, already knowing Daniel's question before he asked it. He continued in an even lower voice than before, "Yes, we were heroes. But we're not supposed to remember that."

"How _did _you remember?" Daniel asked, "It's been over a week since I've been here and I haven't been able to remember anything."

"Well, most people get it back slowly. Raven helped us with that. Some other groups got help from other psychics and telepaths, too," Victor said.

"But shouldn't he have remembered _something_ by now?" Garfield asked. "I started to get my memory back after the first couple of days."

"I don't think he wants to remember," Raven said.

"Yes, I do," Daniel said.

"No, you don't."

Daniel blinked at her confusedly. "Yeah, I do."

Raven shook her head. "No, you don't. Whatever happened to you before this, I think that it may have split your consciousness in two. It would explain why your powers seemed to have taken on a life of their own."

"You think?"

"I can't be sure."

"But you told the Director-"

"I lied. I couldn't feel anything from you," she replied.

"You bullshitted the Director?"

Raven nodded, uninterested.

Daniel chuckled softly, impressed.

"So what do you think happened to him the other day, Raven? Why'd he go all crazy like that?" Garfield asked.

"I don't know. Like I said; I'm not getting anything from Daniel."

"Oh. Well, do _you_ know what made you… change like that?" Garfield asked Daniel uncomfortably. None of Daniel's friends had made any attempts to talk to Daniel about what had happened during the duel in respect for his privacy. He had been through enough during the past several days without any of them bringing it up.

He shook his head with a shrug. "No. I don't really remember much of what happened during that fight."

Raven shrugged. "That will be something you and I will work on today."

"Enrichment starts soon… does it not?" Koriand'r asked sadly, glancing over at Daniel with a sympathetic expression.

As though her words had summoned it, a voice spoke over the speakers of the cafeteria, "_Attention students: Report to the Enrichment Center._"

Victor's brow furrowed and he looked up at the roof confusedly. "Did you guys catch that?"

Raven nodded. "There aren't any new students."

The five of them looked around when they realized that it was true. Koriand'r, who had been there the longest of the group, could find no new faces among the crowd, as she usually could.

"What's going on?" Garfield asked.

"Perhaps there are no more people to take," Koriand'r suggested.

"Or they've got everyone they need," Daniel said.

The group looked around at each other, the questions leading to the most important that they faced: what _did_ they need them for?

Victor sighed. "Come on, guys. We need to get going."

The five friends stood and started to disperse, but before Daniel had even started walking, Raven grabbed his arm and pulled him close so that she could speak to him in hushed tones. "Remember what I said. _Don't_ transform in there. They won't be able to control you."

Daniel nodded and, when she released him, he set off for the Assessment Center.

* * *

**If you've come to the end of the chapter and are confused as to how long it has been, here is a short summary:  
**

**Daniel, prior to his duel with Wendy, has been on the Talent Scout ship for a week. The chapter starts right after the duel with Wendy, and then the break in the chapter indicates two days have passed. **

**As always the next chapter will be up on Friday. Preferably earlier than later. I try to have the chapters prepared the night before. **

**See you then. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Before beginning the chapter, I'd like to give Azorawing a thanks for putting my mind at ease about Raven's name. I hadn't been given any flack for it, but I am a bit of perfectionist, so it was bothering it, and knowing for certain gives me peace of mind. So thank you for that.  
**

**And once again, I would like to give everyone a huge thanks for all of the support and encouragement. I am so pleased and surprised at the attention this story has gotten and hope that you all continue to enjoy it with the coming chapters. **

**Also, there will be an important note at the end of this chapter, so to save yourself some potential confusion next week, please read that. **

**Enjoy the chapter. **

* * *

Daniel had never had to practice more will power (that he could remember) than when he had to willingly step into the Assessment Center pod and allow himself to be strapped in, and it only got harder over the past two days. As the scientists hooked him up to the pod, he silently focused all of his energy on stopping the trembling that had suddenly come over him. He hated how helpless and pathetic he felt. He hated that he had no choice but to _allow_ the Talent Scouts to hurt him. But, most of all, he was terrified they might actually succeed in waking that other part of him.

The memories of his fight with Wendy still eluded him, despite his attempts to recall what, exactly, had come over him, but all he was certain of was that he had been overwhelmed, swept up by emotions and feelings that he had no explanation for. There had been an alarming amount of power and undirected rage that had rushed up from some deep, dark place inside of him to swallow him up. Something else had taken over him and he had just barely managed to hold onto himself, forced to be a passenger in his own body and watch as the angry thing within him fought some demonic monster that didn't exist… a monster that had turned out to just be Wendy. From what he had heard (at least according to the head scientist who, upon Daniel's inquiry, had given him an unusually helpful reply), Wendy had been stabilized and was slowly recovering from her injuries, but wouldn't be fit to return with the rest of the students for some time yet.

Daniel was broken from his thoughts when the head scientist walked up to the glass of the pod after Daniel had been hooked up to all of the equipment and securely restrained.

"5125, I have some unfortunate news. The Director is growing impatient to speed up your progress."

"Well... what does that mean?"

"It means that my efforts are going to have to double. It also means that this is going to be even more unpleasant for you."

Daniel frowned at him, unsure if he was actually being sympathetic or if he was taunting him.

As though reading his thoughts, the Talent Scout went on to say, "I do not wish to cause you pain, 5125 and I do not want you to die. That is why I am going to ask you for your help."

Daniel raised a brow at him. "Are you serious?"

The Talent Scout nodded. "I know that you said you do not remember the cause of your transformation, but perhaps you can still help me to figure out what caused it. I am inclined to believe that your abilities were triggered through intense emotion, rather than a physical threat. So, tell me, do you remember what you _felt_ when you transformed?"

Daniel glared at him, remembering Raven's warning to him. He trusted Raven's advice, but at the same time, the Talent Scout before him sounded genuine and, so far as he was able to tell in his time there, none of the Talent Scouts had lied. He believed that the head Talent Scout was sincere about wanting to avoid hurting him, and Daniel _didn't_ want to be electrocuted anymore, but still, he was torn, thinking a long time and weighing his options.

"My colleagues believe increasing the pain will produce results," the Talent Scout said in hushed tones, "and unless I have another method to offer them, I have no choice but to refer to their judgment. I want to help you if I can, and as I said, I do not want to cause you unnecessary pain, but I need your assistance. Surely you have come up with your own hypothesis?"

Daniel swallowed, thinking over his options a little more before sighing. He had given his fight with Wendy plenty of thought and had come up with a few ideas, so decided to give the Talent Scout the one that felt more likely. "I can't sleep…"

"I am sorry?" the Talent Scout asked confusedly.

"I can't sleep," Daniel repeated. "I'm afraid to close my eyes because… when I do… red eyes stare back at me… every night…"

"Red eyes?"

Daniel nodded.

The Talent Scout turned excitedly and waved at one of the other scientists. "Bring a computer. Now," he instructed, immediately typing onto the computer when it was retrieved for him. He accessed the video feed from Daniel's duel, watching it intensely. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Wendy's eyes.

"Like hers, 5125?" the Talent Scout asked, showing Daniel the video feed that he had paused. It was zoomed in on Wendy's face.

Daniel swallowed and nodded. "Yeah… but… redder… more evil, I guess."

"So 1854 was right," the Talent Scout said. "In that case, I should be able to-"

"You can't," Daniel interrupted.

"Pardon?"

"I don't have control of it… at _all._ If you let it out… I don't know how strong it is or… or what it can do."

"That was always the concern," the scientist admitted, "but if we do _not_ trigger your powers, you will be killed."

Daniel frowned, thinking for a moment. "Are you serious about helping me?"

The Talent Scout nodded.

"Then stall. Give 1854 a chance to help me."

"I cannot. Unless…"

Daniel winced at his hesitation, knowing well that whatever he had to say was not going to be good for him. "Unless what?"

"Unless you are willing to make a sacrifice."

"What do you mean?"

"It is clear that 1854 has an understanding of your power that we do not. I believe that, given time and patience, she will be able to help you in gaining control of your gifts. However, my colleagues must continue to believe that progress is being made. The only way to do that would be to allow them to continue _treating_ you."

"You mean torture me."

"I do not prefer that term as a scientist, but essentially, yes."

"Can't you give them some bogus, sciency crap that'll satisfy them?"

The Talent Scout shook its head. "Everything that is possible to learn about you at the moment has already been learned. The only thing left is to trigger your powers. That only leaves two options, one of which has too high of a chance of actually succeeding. And I have stalled for as long as I could, but the longer I wait to begin serious attempts at awakening your powers, the more suspicious I appear. They grow impatient to get started. I leave the choice up to you."

Daniel frowned, suddenly feeling very tired. He didn't want to be tortured again, but he was far more terrified of letting loose whatever it was that was lurking inside of him. He sighed resignedly and nodded at the Talent Scout.

The Talent Scout looked down, a look of regret on its face as it turned to its colleagues, donning a professional expression when it turned to face them. "We are ready to begin."

The other scientists, who had apparently been asked to keep a distance for a time, all circled his pod, setting to work preparing the experiment.

"Increase the voltage slowly. We do not want to shock his system," the lead scientist said. "Begin at level one… now."

* * *

Raven was staring at him and he could swear he could see worry on her face, which worried him. She didn't have expressions, and the fact that she did at the moment told him just how bad he must look.

Despite the stalling the lead scientist had done—which had burned ten minutes off of the time he was supposed to be there—and starting off at the lowest amount of voltages possible, they had _still_ managed to double the amount of voltages he had endured the first time and the effects were taking their toll on him.

He was sagging where he sat. Dark, almost black circles had formed under his eyes and he was assaulted with occasional twitches and shivers. He was sore, tired, his throat was stinging from screaming, and his muscles still ached from the electrocution he had endured moments ago.

The worst part was that he suspected Raven could see how much pain he was in. She had been given a training dome so that she could use her powers without restraint and be better able to help Daniel, but on the first day, she had done little except shut her eyes and chant, telling Daniel that he only needed to relax for the time being. The second day she had had him watch his training video with Wendy repeatedly, just watching him silently, but whatever she had been hoping to achieve by doing so had apparently been fruitless. Today they both sat Indian style in the middle of the dome and had been completely silent, which was actually quite fine with Daniel. He was too tired and in too much pain to talk anyway. Still, it made him uncomfortable and nervous. He knew she was powerful, but wasn't fully aware of what all she could do. For all he knew, she was controlling his thoughts, although he doubted this was the case.

"Tell me about your dreams," Raven said suddenly after several minutes of unbroken silence.

He blinked at her, surprised that she was actually asking him this time, and even talking to him at all. His sessions with her had been more like nap time so far and he had begun to question whether or not she was serious about being able to help him, or if she just wanted an hour to meditate and let him rest. He spent a moment clearing his throat so that he did not sound as hoarse and pathetic as he felt before asking, "What?"

"The dreams you've been having. Tell me about them. In as much detail as you can."

Daniel sighed. "Um… I don't really remember a lot of detail about them…" he said, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing at her from under his brow.

"As much as you can," she said patiently, staring at him.

"Um… well… there's uh… a lot of green and black smoke… a lot of it. And… there's always fire. Every time. It's bright and hot and smells like…" he felt his stomach churn and stopped, fearing that he might suddenly throw up. Feeling Raven's eyes upon him, he breathed slowly, in and out a few times until his stomach had settled, then continued, "-like burned meat … It's really thick. And um… there's something else there with me. Every time."

"Tell me about that thing," Raven said.

"It's evil," Daniel said. "Pure evil. Sometimes it reaches out and tries to grab me. Sometimes it pushes me into the fire. Sometimes all I can see are its red eyes."

"And everything is the same all the time?" she asked.

He nodded.

She nodded. "Alright. Then we're ready to get started," she said.

"Get started with what?" he asked.

"I'm putting you under hypnosis."

"Why?"

"Because I can't connect with your subconscious."

He gave her a confused, blank look. "What does that mean?"

"That's my power. Normally, I can make connections with people's minds and emotions, but I can't with you. Your emotions are too hectic and faint," she said, sitting up straight and resting her wrists on her knees in her usual meditative pose. "It'll be like the last two days, except you'll be fully asleep this time. The half-sleep you've been doing isn't good for you, anyway."

He adjusted as well, sitting up straight and matching her posture.

"Now close your eyes."

He closed them.

"Now relax your legs... relax your arms... feel your entire body relaxing... you're at ease... listen to my voice... let my voice guide you deeper and deeper into a more relaxed state... your eyelids are heavy... you're feeling sleepy... and you're asleep..."

His eyes snapped open and he shot upright with a gasp.

_"Calm down. Relax. Listen to my voice."_

Daniel looked around, shocked to find that he had _already_ fallen into his dream. Green-black smoke swirled around grey, dark, characterless buildings that towered menacingly above him. He didn't remember those being there before.

_"What do you see?"_

"Um... smoke, like always," he answered, then added, "but there are some buildings this time, too."

_"Your memories are already coming back. Just don't let them come back all at once. You won't be able to handle it."_

"Where are you?" he asked, looking around the black street he was sitting on, searching the smoke and clouds for her.

_"I'm here. Remember, this is just a dream. Nothing you're seeing is real,_" she said reassuringly.

He nodded, trying to listen to her words and calm his frayed nerves.

_"That's it. Now, which way do you go?"_

He shakily stood and looked down both sides of the street, scratching the back of his head. What he could see of the landscape and buildings were familiar, but he couldn't remember how. "Um… I think I go this way," he said, turning to his left. As he peered down the street, he saw a dim, yellowish red glow in the distance and immediately felt fear tighten his chest. He shook his head, trying to shake off the feeling. "Yeah… definitely that way."

_"There's isn't any hurry. Take your time."_

He nodded and, taking a deep breath and gathering up confidence and courage, started walking.

The scenery never changed. He passed by the same buildings and cracks in the street over and over as though in a constant loop, the glow in the distance never getting closer or further away.

"Why am I not getting anywhere?" Daniel asked.

_"You're being blocked,"_ Raven replied.

"By who?"

_"Yourself."_

"I'm blocking myself?"

_"Yes."_

"Why? I _want_ to remember," he stated, but he knew even as he said it, it was a lie. Some part of him didn't want to get any closer to that glow in the distance. He didn't want to have to come face to face with the monster that lurked there. He didn't want to awaken that other part of him.

_"Obviously you don't_,_"_ Raven replied, then paused for a second before telling him to stop.

"What?" Daniel asked, feeling nervous suddenly and looking around himself as though expecting something to jump out at him.

_"Calm down. I'm just going to try something different._"

"What are you going to do?" Daniel asked, looking up at the sky.

There was no answer.

"Raven?" Daniel asked.

He looked around the swirling sky above, waiting for her response, but it never came. All was silent, building thicker and thicker that he thought he might suffocate in it.

"Raven, stop it. Answer me," he said, his voice taking on a tone of desperation. He looked ahead and froze.

The glow was closer.

"Raven, seriously, answer me," Daniel said angrily, but his voice was barely above a whisper. He smelled smoke.

_"I'm here."_

Daniel let out the breath he had been holding with relief, but his eyes remained locked on the glow ahead that had somehow gotten closer without him moving. "Where the hell were you?"

_"I needed to do something. Keep going. You should be able to get closer now."_

"I don't have to."

_"Why?"_

"It's coming to me," Daniel said, watching the street ahead of him seem to fall back, pulling the glow closer and closer towards him. Without really being aware that he was doing it, he began walking, but as his body moved against his will, his fear began to grow.

"How long has it been? It's been about an hour by now, right? We should just break for today. We can pick up tomorrow. I'll be ready tomorrow. There's no point in going on if we're just going to have to stop in a minute. I don't mind, really. It's fine. We can pick up tomorrow like I said-"

_"Calm down. Everything is going to be fine. Nothing can hurt you."_

"I know that, but I just… I just… we don't need to go anymore. I don't want to go any more," he said, stopping in his tracks and trying to back away now, but it felt like trying to move through molasses. Panicked and afraid, his thoughts were a jumbled mess. All that he could focus on was the glow getting closer and closer and what undoubtedly waited for him there. "Raven, I don't want to do this. Wake me up. I don't want to be here."

Suddenly the silence was banished by the echoing, spine-tingling laughter that he had heard every night since being taken. The sinister laugh filled every space, echoed off of every surface, and reverberated in his head.

Eyes widening in fear, he turned, watching fire suddenly erupt from behind him, rushing like rapidly growing vines across the street and then forming a circle around him, cutting off any escape. It crackled and danced, blue flames licking at the air and growing to intimidating heights.

_"Don't be afraid, Daniel. Nothing can hurt you,"_ Raven tried to assure him, but he was beyond the point of comprehending anything she said.

Daniel stood in the center of the circle, knowing full well what was coming. His clenched fists shook as he looked around, watching the flames.

_"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"_

Screams of terror that he had not heard before now drowned out the laughter with deafening strength, making him clamp his hands over his ears. He dropped to his knees when a wave of despair washed over him, zapping away his energy. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" he screamed at the voices. "Shut up! Shut up! Leave me alone! Please!"

Raven's voice had disappeared amidst all of the noise and chaos. He had lost his only anchor to reality.

"Please, stop!" he cried desperately.

The laughter came back again with renewed vitality, getting through the barrier he had made with his hands.

Sensing it more than feeling it, he whirled around, coming face to face with blood-red eyes and a fanged grin that was laughing at him. A hand reached out, clamping over his face, engulfing his vision in darkness.

"AAAH!" Daniel screamed, eyes snapping open and shooting up from where he had been laying.

Raven pulled away from where she had been leaning over him, putting a hand on his shoulder to calm him. "It's alright," she assured him in her usual monotone voice.

Daniel sat for a moment, chest heaving and panting to the point that each breath was made a wheezing sound. He was drenched in sweat and felt more tired than he had when he'd first lied down.

After taking a moment to calm himself down, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, pushing his damp bangs out of his eyes, he asked her in a tired, scratchy voice, "What happened?"

"I lost you," Raven answered.

"How?"

"You blocked me out."

He shook his head. "No I didn't. I was…"

"Yes you did," Raven said, "Your subcnscious didn't like what I was doing."

"Why don't I… want to remember?" he asked between pants.

"Self defense. You're protecting yourself."

"From what?"

She stared at him.

He stared back at her for a moment before it clicked. "You already know, don't you?"

"You need to find out on your own," she replied.

"What gives you the right to decide that?" Daniel asked hotly, feeling defensive and a little exposed all of a sudden.

"I could tell you myself, but I assumed you _didn't_ want to go on another rampage."

Daniel sighed, his initial anger subsiding. "Sorry."

She nodded.

"What did you do, anyway? To make the loop stop?"

"Look up."

She pointed at the sky and he followed her finger. At the top of the dome was a holographic image of a pair of red, glowing eyes.

It took everything in him not to shout in surprise, but couldn't help the look of fear that briefly passed over his face.

"That's just _one_ of your triggers," Raven said. "I didn't want to have to resort to that, but it worked."

"It did?" he asked, looking away from the image. He felt nervous that they were still there, however.

Raven must have sensed it from him, because she stood up, walked over to the control panel, and returned the drone to wherever it was stored in the floor below. She then went back over to him, sitting down in front of him with her legs crossed Indian style.

"You experienced something new, didn't you? Something that had never been there before."

Daniel thought back on the screams of terror and felt a shiver go up his spine. "Yeah. Yeah I did."

"That was progress," Raven said. "Tomorrow we'll try again without the trigger. Try to sleep tonight and get a little farther on your own."

Daniel almost scoffed at the idea of actually sleeping. He had barely slept over the past few days and the idea that, after this experience, he would be sleeping _at all_ tonight bordered on the ridiculous, but he nodded regardless. "Are we done?"

She gave him a nod. "Training will start in a few minutes, so you should get as much rest as you can," Raven said, standing, "Oh, and be careful about training today. Since they haven't been getting any results, they'll probably try to make you turn." With that, she turned and left him in the dome.

Daniel sighed, running a hand through his hair while glancing out at the Warden standing outside of the dome from under his bangs. After the incident with his last training session, the Talent Scouts had placed him under conditional Intensive Control, monitoring and assigning him personal guards when he was at the Training or Assessment Centers. He had been assigned the Warden outside of his dome two days before, and it had followed him to every training and assessment session, staying completely silent. Daniel wondered if it was dangerous for the Warden to be watching his sessions with Raven. If it told any of the scientists in the Assessment Center that he was making progress with Raven, they might change their tactics and he couldn't afford to let that happen. Raven had made it quite clear that whatever power contained within him was too strong to release all at once.

The Warden, however, had appeared to be uncaring as to what they were doing and Raven had shown no concern about its presence, so he decided he would let it be for the time being.

He spent the remaining eight or so minutes he had free to sit and rest, putting his folded arms on top of his knees and staring off at the wall at the far end of the room. Try as he might, though, his mind felt restless and preoccupied with what he had just undergone.

When the Training Center finally began filling up with Students ready for training, Daniel felt a small sense of relief. He stood up and went to choose the training equipment he wanted, but didn't make it halfway before the speaker above spoke, "_Selected equipment: custom. Training will commence in three… two… one…_"

As soon as training began, it quickly became clear that Raven was right (again). Although the training exercises had never been exactly easy, they had usually worked to strengthen or hone certain skills. Today, however, it had been designed to _hurt_ him.

At first, he thought he was being paranoid. The drones, which were twice as many as usual, _felt_ like they had been reprogrammed to deliver a higher voltage of shocks every time it touched him, but he had attributed it to him being sore, tired, and generally off his game. Still, he had gotten quite good at taking out the weaponized drones and was able to defeat them with relative ease, although he did get shocked a few times. Even after they had retreated back into the floor, Daniel still felt numb in the places they had touched him, but tried to shrug it off.

It wasn't until six drones that looked like Wendy came up out of the floor and began attacking him did he realize the goal of this particular training exercise. The drones tried to replicate the fight he had had with Wendy, matching her speed, intensity, and strength in order to produce the same results as Wendy herself had generated. They were, however, still drones and Daniel was able to beat all six of them after a little under an hour.

By the time training was over, he was as exhausted as ever, running on fumes. He was scratched up, bruised, burned from head to toe, and frustrated. As if they weren't doing enough to him already, they had to add an extra level of difficulty to his training exercises.

Daniel followed the line of Students into the cafeteria, got his mush, and sat down with his friends at their table, a concentrated look on his face.

Victor was the first to notice the state Daniel was in and frowned deeply. "Hey, man, you alright?"

Daniel rubbed his eyes and shook his head a little to try and banish the wave of sleepiness that came over him. He looked at Victor and chuckled tiredly, "Isn't that question getting a little old?"

"Well it would if you didn't keep showing up with new problems," Garfield said.

"What do you mean?"

"You're covered in scratches, dude. Your uniform's pretty shredded."

Daniel looked down at the grey jumpsuit he was wearing to find their words to be the truth. There were tears all along the arms of his shirt, here and there on the chest and several sets on his legs. Each tear was outlined with red. He sighed. "Great… Stupid Wendy-bots."

"Wendy-bots?" Koriand'r asked.

Daniel nodded. "They tried to get me to turn again during training."

"But is that not what you go to the Assessment Center to do?" Koriand'r asked curiously.

"Apparently that's not enough for them," Daniel said, but when he saw the worried looks on all of their faces, he forced a smile and shrugged, "But it wasn't that bad. The drones are starting to get easy."

Victor laughed. "They do get predictable after a while."

"I do not believe we will have to fight drones anymore after next week," Koriand'r said.

"What do you mean?" Garfield asked.

"I overheard other students talking. Someone tried to escape yesterday."

The whole table leaned in excitedly at this, looking to Koriand'r for her to continue.

"What happened?!" Garfield asked.

"Did they get out?" Daniel asked.

"Who was it?" Victor asked.

She shook her head. "They did not. It was Querl," she said, but seeing Daniel's blank expression, continued, "He is among the smartest of the students here. I believe he was hacking into the mainframe of the ship. He was trying to remove the suppressors. He did not do it. But, before the Talent Scouts took his memories again, he told a friend of mine that the Talent Scouts were moving forward with their plans. It will start by changing our training."

Raven looked down thoughtfully, then back at Koriand'r. "How is Querl?"

"He is alright, but he cannot remember much now," Kori said sadly. "He did not recognize me this morning when I greeted him with the customary wave of hello."

"Did you hear anything about what kind of plans the Talent Scouts have for us?" Victor asked.

Koriand'r shook her head. "I did not. I do not think Querl got that information."

"_Attention students: Report to your Tasks."_

Garfield groaned dramatically, but stood with a smile and a shrug. "Well, back to the ole grind, guys."

The group stood up from their table and parted ways again and Daniel headed off to his Task.

* * *

**I have some unfortunate news. I have gone through what I have so far of the story, and it has occurred to me that I am too rapidly coming upon the point I have yet to write. I do not want there to be months where I do not post a chapter, so for continuity's sake, I will sadly only be posting once a week from here on out. The chapters will be posted on Mondays from now on, including this next Monday. I didn't expect that to happen so quickly, so sorry about that. **

**Anyway, next chapter will have several guest appearances and will also reveal the identity of 5343 and might be quite long if I can't figure out how to cut it down a bit. **

**See you then. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes on this chapter will be at the bottom of the page if you need them.  
**

* * *

The week that followed went along with a fairly small amount of surprises. Daniel continued being sent to the Assessment Center and Raven during his Enrichment time, making slow, but steady progress that seemed to be satisfying the Director enough for her to not change his routine. Eventually however, his highly predictable schedule was somewhat shaken one day when he was following the other students and the Warden to go to Task. For no apparent reason, he was approached by 5343, who began casually walking beside him. A little surprised, Daniel blinked at him. "Uh… hey."

5343 looked at him. "Hey," he replied shortly.

Daniel puzzled at the other boy. Over the past week 5343 had paid little attention to him, if he regarded him at all. The most that they had interacted was when Daniel had needed some assistance repairing one of the engines. Otherwise, the two had only seen each other in passing.

Daniel was puzzled even further when, after he'd gotten his tools to begin his evening's work, 5343 grabbed a tool belt of his own and began following him. Everywhere. Wherever Daniel decided to go to work or inspect the engines, 5343 went as well, following behind and doing whatever work was available nearby. Naturally, Daniel at first believed it to be coincidence, so he had tested the other boy by making his way to the other side of the room, where he usually ended his night's work. 5343 followed him, looking distracted with other things, but still making it a point to keep Daniel within range.

Confused and a little wary of 5343's sudden interest in him, Daniel pretended to ignore him, although he never let him out of his vision.

5343 didn't do anything else strange for the rest of the evening. His behavior only ever became stranger if anyone passed by. As other students walked through the engine room to complete their own work (occasionally passing by or recruiting helpers for particularly difficult work) 5343 would inch closer to Daniel; or at least that was what it looked like to him. Uncertain, Daniel paid closer attention to the other raven haired boy when others would pass by and, sure enough, 5343 would move closer.

By the time Tasks were over, Daniel was thoroughly flummoxed. 5343 had not said another word to him the entire time and only ever left his general vicinity whenever they were separated on their walk down the halls to their cells.

When Daniel was reunited with his bunkmates in their cell, he told them all of the strange behavior he had observed.

"Creepy," Garfield said.

Victor nodded in agreement. "And he hasn't ever done that to you before?"

Daniel shook his head.

Garfield thought for a moment. "Maybe it has something to do with your duel."

"What, like he's one of Wendy's crew?" Daniel asked.

Garfield shook his head. "No, like maybe he wants your protection."

"My protection? I can't protect anybody. I can't control myself when I'm… like that. And besides, I'm useless with this thing," Daniel said, waving his wrist to display the scar where his inhibitor had been placed.

Victor nodded his head to the side and pursed his bottom lip slightly as he considered Garfield's theory. "He might have a point, Daniel."

Daniel looked at him incredulously, about to repeat all that he had just said, but a hand from Victor stopped him.

"Just listen, Daniel. Your fight with Wendy was… unusual. Even for a whole bunch of super-powered teens."

"Why?"

"Dude, you almost _shattered_ your training dome!" Garfield exclaimed excitedly.

"Shh!" Victor shushed him, looking over at the window on the door to their cell to ensure no one heard. When he didn't see a head appear for several seconds, he turned back to his friends. "He's right, Daniel. I don't know what those domes are made of, but they're designed to withstand an amazing amount of power. _You_ almost broke one. Not only that, but you also almost _killed_ Wendy. I've fought her before and she isn't weak by a long shot."

"Fine, I get that, but everyone else is either scared of me or hates me. Why would he think I would protect him? And from what?"

Victor shrugged. "It's just a theory. He may hate you and is studying your habits. Who knows? Either way, you should keep up what you're doing and watch him."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, probably. Hey, did you guys hear anything else about what they're going to do in training tomorrow?"

Both Garfield and Victor shook their heads. "Nothing. Raven tried to help Querl get some of his memory back today, but it's not going well. Poor kid's barely functional right now," Victor said.

"Seriously?"

Victor nodded sadly. "From a Talent Scout's perspective, that was probably a smart move. Querl's the smartest kid here. He would have escaped eventually."

"But doesn't scrambling up his brain defeat the purpose of bringing him here at all?" Daniel asked. "I mean, obviously they _want_ our powers for something."

"Maybe he found more than he said he did," Garfield said. "Maybe he figured out their plans or something."

"It's possible. It was definitely out of character for the Talent Scouts."

"This place just gets weirder and weirder every day," Garfield said with a heavy sigh

Victor nodded. "We should get to bed, guys. We don't know what's in store for us tomorrow, so we should be rested."

Garfield and Daniel nodded in agreement and went got into their beds, trying to get some sleep, but none of them really could. Their minds stayed wide awake, a sense of foreboding troubling their dreams.

That morning began like any other up until breakfast. As the long lines wound down into the cafeteria, each student stopped at the large doors where an overhead hologram displayed a flashing, light blue announcement, much like an airport terminal.

Four Wardens stood at the door, halting every ten students that came to the door, grabbing each and scanning the back of their necks. Daniel approached the Talent Scout directly in front of him, allowing it to scan the back of his neck. The Warden read the scanner emotionlessly and read aloud, "Team 35."

Daniel blinked at it impatiently, refusing to budge despite the Warden's sudden lack of interest in him. When he was not receiving the attention he wanted, he irritably asked, "Okay... what the hell is that for? What are we being put into teams to do?"

The Warden growled at him. "Move along, student. Or be removed."

Daniel rolled his eyes at the threat, but decided that arguing with the brute was pointless and moved on. He waited for the rest of his friends gathered at the entrance before actually getting into line for food.

"What's the deal with the Wardens assigning everybody to teams?" Daniel asked.

"It is most likely for the training exercises. They will be different today, remember, Daniel?" Koriand'r surmised.

"What do you think they're going to have us do?" Garfield asked.

"Maybe they're moving on to tactical training," Daniel mused as he followed his group to their table, "I mean, if they _are_ trying to turn us into an army, then that would be the next step, right?" He stopped at their table, only to find it already occupied by five strangers.

Daniel stood with his friends, trays in their hands, looking between each other in uncertainty.

The new, smaller group, all sat on the same side, facing the group as they approached. Among them, Daniel immediately recognized 5343, but he was unfamiliar with the other three. To 5343's left sat a thin, yet defined boy who Daniel assumed to be human. He had ginger-red hair, green eyes, and a playfully mischievous smirk. To the left of him was a girl who was entirely blue, but the colors seemed to shift from dark to light and light to dark, as though the color of her skin rippled when she moved. Her hair, which matched the length of her back, was coral colored and glistened in the light like fine silk. Her eyes, which held no visible pupil or iris, was entirely black, but even so managed to shine like stars. To her left was another boy who appeared just as entranced with the girl as every other boy present, but was trying to hide it with awkward glances or rubbing his neck as though it were hurting him. This boy also appeared human. He was tall and, although he was well built, had a lanky look to him. He had a mess of brown hair on his head, chocolate eyes, and a decidedly awkward, yet charming look to him. The boy at the end of the row had raven-black hair, which he kept short, but well kept, small, blue eyes, and strong, almost statuesque features.

The five newcomers looked up as Daniel and his friends approached and appeared to be waiting for something. At first, no one moved or spoke; they simply stared dumbly at one another as they waited for someone else to make the first move.

"Vic, that's the kid who was following me," Daniel whispered, leaning towards the cyborg so that no one could hear him.

Victor looked at him with surprise. "_Him_?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, then glanced confusedly at Victor's shocked expression. "What? Why, do you know him?"

Koriand'r, oblivious to the near silent conversation going on beside her, appeared delighted by the prospect of new friends and eagerly sat down across from the side of the table all four of the newcomers were seated on.

"Good morning to you!" she said pleasantly. "Welcome to our place of eating. I am Koriand'r and those are my friends, Garfield, Victor, Raven, and Daniel."

5343 smiled (Daniel noted subconsciously that it was the first time he had seen the boy smile) and put a hand on his chest. "I'm Dick. This-," he said, pointing to the red head on his left, then to the girl, and the two boys seated beside her, "-is Wally, Svetlana, Peter, and Conner."

"Yes, we remember you, Dick! It is so very good to see you my friend! And how do the rest of you do?" Koriand'r asked pleasantly, smiling at each of them as they were introduced.

"It's good to see you, too, Kori," Dick said with a smile to her. He then glanced up at the other four of Koriand'r's group, who had yet to sit down, and gestured at the empty seats in front of them. "You can sit down."

"It's good to see you man," Victor said to Dick, although he looked decidedly confused. "Not to sound like I'm not happy that you're here, but what _are_ you doing here? I thought you were uh…" he looked around suspiciously before leaning in and saying in a much lower tone, "I thought you were busy," Victor said as he sat down.

Daniel glanced between the two, wondering what exactly was going on between the two. Clearly they knew each other, but it seemed to be a stronger connection than was being portrayed.

"We're all on the same team for training," Conner said, "We thought we'd stop by and say hello."

Daniel glanced at Victor, Raven, Garfield, and Koriand'r, wondering if any of them were buying the sharp-featured boy's response. Their looks affirmed that they did not.

"There are five other students on our team. Why would you come to our table, and not invite them?" Daniel asked.

"Well, _clearly_ our _clever_ ploy is _not_ working, so why don't we just cut to the chase," Wally suggested in a cocky, uninterested way, stretching his limbs and leaning back in his chair.

"It's not a ploy," Conner said. "I just thought if we approached it with some delicacy-"

"Which is another word for bullshit," Wally interrupted.

"That's enough," Dick said, and to Daniel's surprise, both boys ceased their arguing. Satisfied, Dick turned his attention to Daniel and his friends. "We're not here to chat. We're here to talk strategy."

"We don't even know what kind of training we're going to be doing yet, Dick," Victor said and Daniel decided that the way that all of his friends seemed to be addressing Dick was too familiar for them all not to know each other. "I don't see how we can start strategizing before we even-"

"I'm not talking about getting prepared for some stupid training exercise. I'm talking about preventing an attack."

"An attack?" Raven asked.

Dick nodded.

"By who? Who's being attacked?" Garfield asked.

The group across the table all looked at Daniel.

Daniel paled. A brief flash of Wendy's bloody and bruised body flashed before his vision and he swallowed. He raised his hands and shook his head, "Look, I didn't mean to... it was... I couldn't control myself. That-"

Peter shook his head, "No, I don't think you're getting what we're trying to say. We're not worried about you. We're worried _for_ you."

Daniel blinked several times confusedly. "What do you mean?"

"Kid, you've got a _huge_ target on your back," Wally said.

"He's right," Svetlana said with a thick Russian accent. "Zhere are many people who hate you, and vould seize any opportunity to hurt you."

Daniel frowned. "Because of what I... what I did to Wendy?"

"Zhat," Svetlana said. "And also vhat you did to zhe training dome."

"Why would anybody care about that?" Garfield asked.

"The domes are designed to withstand an incredible amount of power; almost immeasurable," Peter said, almost excitedly, as if the concept was remarkable to him, "but Daniel cracked one. To Devouts, you're threatening their 'higher purpose'."

"I'm not trying to _do_ anything. If I could've stopped myself, I would have."

"They don't care, Daniel," Dick said. "You're a threat and they _will_ try to hurt you. Most likely during training."

"Which brings us all the way back around to why we're here," Wally said, making a circle with one finger.

"Ve must make a plan to protect you in zhe event zhat someone _does_ try to hurt you," Svetlana said.

Daniel stared at the table thoughtfully for a moment, then looked up at Dick. "What's the catch?"

"Zhere is no-"

Dick raised a hand to stop her. "The catch is that we want your help."

"With what?"

"Oh, come on, it's not that hard to figure out," Wally said impatiently. "What does _anybody _want around here? Well, besides the Devouts, anyway."

Daniel sighed. "I already told you; I can't control myself. I can't-"

"Not yet," Peter said, "But we know that you're been getting help from Raven. Plus we know the Talent Scouts are trying to get you under control as well."

"Yeah and nothing's worked," Daniel replied.

"But did you not say that you and Raven made progress?" Koriand'r asked.

"Not helping, Kori," Daniel whispered under his breath. Frankly, he didn't trust these new students. To be completely honest, he didn't trust _any_ of the other students outside his circle of friends, and wasn't too keen on the idea of putting any amount of reliance on someone else.

"Look, obviously we're not going to ask from you anything more than you can give," Conner began, "But think about this; everyone here was taken, just like you, from their family and friends, and _trapped _here. _You_ could be their way back home."

"Yeah, man. I've got a family that doesn't know where I am," Wally said, "And I can't think of any way to get back to them on my own."

"Boz of my parents don't know vhere I am," Svetlana said, her eyes downcast sadly.

Peter swallowed. "My aunt is alone. All alone. Unless I can get back to her."

"We all have someone we need to get back to," Conner said. "And right now, our best plan is you."

Daniel looked down at the table indecisively. It wasn't as though he was heartless or that he _didn't_ want to help. It was just that he didn't think he _could_ help. Even if Raven was able to help him, he wasn't sure if he was willing to _use_ his powers again. He'd almost killed Wendy. She was _still_ recovering from what he had done to her. He couldn't risk that again. He couldn't let that _thing_ take over him again.

"Look, it doesn't matter what we want from you," Dick said, interrupting Daniel's thoughts, "What maters right now is that you _are_ a target and there are people who _will_ try to hurt you today. Whether you agree to help us or not, you still need our help."

"He's right, Daniel," Victor pointed out, "If you're in danger, then we need to be prepared for it."

"We do not have much time," Koriand'r noted, "Breakfast time is nearly finished."

"Do you guys have a plan?" Garfield asked.

"Yeah, the plan is basically that we totally ignore whatever the goal for the training session is," Wally said.

"That's your big plan?" Raven asked with her usual dry tone.

"Whatever they have planned for the training session will be second priority. During the session, Daniel's going to be our top priority and stay in the center of the team," Conner informed, mapping out what it would look like on the table with his finger like it was a football play. "That will keep him out of harm's way."

"Wait, so I'm just, what, ducking my head like some damsel in distress?" Daniel asked indignantly.

"Did you even look at the roster? We're some of the highest ranked students here, and we're facing students with the same ranks," Dick said.

"Face it, Danny-boy," Wally said snarkily, pointing at Daniel dramatically with both hands, "you _are_ the weakest link!"

"What? Why would they put me up against-" Daniel began, then stopped as he thought about it further. Of course they would. They wanted him to use his powers and the only instance that he _had_ so far was when he was facing Wendy, who had been much higher ranked than he was. He sighed heavily at the realization. They were right. He _was _going to need their help if he had any intention of not transforming on them. "You're right. I do need your help, but I can't promise you anything."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Dick said.

"How are people finding out about me, anyway?" Daniel asked curiously. As far as he knew, no one knew about his sessions with Raven except for his group, and none of them had said anything.

"Seriously?" Wally asked in disbelief at his apparently stupid question, "Have you even _looked_ at the people you're surrounded by every day? Do you know how many teen geniuses are here?"

"Don't these stop everyone here from being able to use their talents?" Daniel asked, raising his wrist to show the scar where his chip had been implanted.

"For the most part," Peter replied, "They can't repress _everything_. Such as the sizes of some of these bigger guys. They're tough even without suppressors. So the Talent Scouts use their chips that release an electrical charge when they get overly stressed. The same goes for the genius students. Hyperactive mental states send a signal to the chip, which then shocks them and gets them out of that state."

"They can do that?" Daniel asked, surprised at the sophistication of it all.

Peter nodded.

"He should know," Conner said, "He's a genius, too. Learned that trick of the Talent Scout's first hand."

"How does it know whether or not you're making plans to escape or if you're just deep in thought?" Daniel asked.

Peter sighed, "Well that's the thing about it. It doesn't. It's still a flawed system, but unfortunately for us, it's not exactly flawed in the way we'd like it to be."

"_Attention students: Report to the Enrichment Center."_

Daniel frowned and, clenching his fists, mentally prepared himself for the inevitable as he stood up with the others.

"We'll discuss strategy a bit more once we actually see what we're up against," Dick said to the group, then looked at Daniel and gave him a nod, "Good luck."

Daniel nodded back and turned, ready to separate from the group, when Raven suddenly placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him for long enough for the rest of the group to pass.

"We're getting our session first today," Raven said.

Daniel raised a brow at her. "What for?"

She shrugged and offered no theories.

He let out a small breath of relief. He would still have to go, but being the procrastinator that he was, he found it more comforting that it could be put off for the time being. "Okay. So, what, to the training center?"

She shook her head. "It's being reconstructed."

"Oh. Well, where to then?"

"We're supposed to follow the Warden," Raven said, gesturing to the Warden that had been watching their session the day before. Once it had their attention, it began walking and they followed.

* * *

**For those of you who might not know (although I suspect everyone reading this does), the names correlate to the heroes as follows: **

**Wally: Kid Flash**

**Conner: Superboy**

**Peter: Spider-Man (That one is a bit more obvious than the other two, but I thought I would specify just in case)**

**Svetlana: OC**

**Once again, updates will come only on Mondays now. I ran into a bit of a problem in the chapter after the next one after reviewing what all I have already written down, so I will try to get that taken care of before the chapter needs to be posted. I will let you know that if I anticipate it being a little late.**

**See you then. **


	9. Chapter 9

**I am so very sorry for how long it took me to get this chapter out. A lot of stuff happened and it's way too much to go into detail about. Anyway, again, I'm so very sorry and I'll try not to let so much time go by between updates. **

* * *

During Daniel's time at the Talent Scout facility, he had come to realize that the ship they were on was constructed so that all student facilities were on the west side of the ship, the ship's functional rooms were in the center, such as the engine room and the like, and Talent Scout facilities lay on the east portion of the ship, effectively separating students from the more vital portions of the ship. Daniel had only been taken the east side of the ship once, and that was when the Talent Scouts had intended to kill him, but today, he was going back to the east side. He wasn't thrilled about the idea, since his last visit to this portion of the ship had been decidedly unpleasant, so he followed the Warden reluctantly, dragging his feet and continuously looking behind them. Raven, in contrast to Daniel's general squirmy nature, walked confidently. Her face never changed from the usual, dull expression that it always wore, and her focus wavered only when she noticed Daniel's discomfort. As the Warden led them further and further down the long white halls, and Daniel got more nervous, Raven eventually looked at the boy and, rather abruptly, touched his arm.

He stopped his fidgeting to look at her in surprise.

"Are you alright?" she asked unemotionally.

He swallowed down his embarrassment at having been so easily seen through and shook his head. "No, I'm fine, I just... didn't eat enough breakfast," he said with a reassuring half smile.

Raven looked him over for a moment thoughtfully. "I think we'll try something different today."

The Warden stopped eventually at an automatic door, which lifted up into the ceiling to allow them entrance. The room they found themselves in did not look much different from any of the other rooms. All white walls, floor, and ceiling, bright, blinding white lights, and two white pillows on the floor. The Warden entered first and took a position standing beside the door with its hands crossed in front of it.

Raven and Daniel followed in after him and Raven gestured at the pillows for them to sit on. Daniel sat cross-legged on the pillow across from Raven, feeling that same sense of nervousness and dread come over him. He had been fighting off the feeling since Raven had told him that they would be doing their session first, but he could no longer keep at bay the overwhelming sense of fear that was gripping his heart.

"Don't be so nervous," Raven told him. "We're doing something different."

"I know," Daniel said, but still was having difficulty calming himself. He felt like the red eyed monster knew that he was there and that it was lurking inside of him, just _waiting_ to get a hold of him.

"Calm down," Raven said, reading him like an open book.

"How are you doing that?" Daniel asked.

"Doing what?"

"Knowing what I'm feeling. I thought you said you couldn't connect with my emotions and stuff."

"I can't. But I _can_ observe the way your arms are shaking and the sick look you have on your face. Not everything I do has to be magical," she said sarcastically.

He rolled his eyes at her and then noticed that he had relaxed some. He looked up at her as she settled in her seat and could have sworn he saw a flash of a smile.

She sat cross-legged in front of him, same as before, but this time, she rested the back of her wrists on her knees and shut her eyes, taking in deep, deliberate breaths. After a few seconds of this, she addressed him in a calm, quiet voice, "Do as I do."

He adjusted slightly so that he was no longer slumping and placed his wrists on his knees. Then, holding his head up, he shut his eyes and took in several deep breaths.

"Good. Now, repeat after me," she said and, after another long breath, began to chant, "Azarath metrion zinthos... Azarath metrion zinthos..."

"But isn't that a magic spell or something?" Daniel asked, worried that he might accidentally set the pillows on which they were currently sitting on fire if he said it wrong.

"For you, it's just a mantra," Raven replied evenly.

"What about for you?" Daniel asked curiously.

Eyes still closed, she took in a breath that was out of sync with the rest, which told Daniel that he was getting on her nerves and should just do as he was told. So, taking his own advice, he closed his eyes and began to chant with her.

"Azarath metrion zinthos... Azarath metrion zinthos... Azarath metrion zinthos..."

The two kept up the chanting without fail and, at first, Daniel found it _very_ boring, but as the minutes passed and Raven did not tell him to do anything else, he found his mind wandering of its own accord.

The black darkness of his vision shifted and showed him two, green, ghostly looking octopuses. They were floating, but Daniel could tell that they weren't in the ocean. He puzzled over them for a moment, wondering why his mind would go to such an odd, vivid picture, when suddenly he saw a white glove come up and deliver a powerful right hook that knocked both of them out of the air. He gasped aloud, surprised by the sudden change.

Raven continued to chant, even after he stopped.

He lifted the gloved hand to his vision, realizing now that it belonged to him. It was smoking, but the smoke was green and moved more like a liquid.

His breathing quickened slightly.

Raven kept chanting.

He turned his head, watching the world fuzzily turn and streak in his vision. He thought he was in some sort of hospital or lab. There were vials and all sorts of medical equipment literally the room. As he turned his head, something caught his attention and he turned his head, molasses slow, to look at it. His breath hitched when the blurriness faded and his vision focused on the large, octagonal door that stood at the far end of the room. Its heavy metal doors were open, revealing a mesmerizing, swirling green pool.

He stared, transfixed by the sight that would have frightened anyone else, but felt completely natural to him; almost beautiful. Finally breaking his gaze away, he turned his head more to look at the rest of the room. The various vials and machines that littered the counters meant nothing to him, but his eyes stopped again at the sight of a figure standing amongst the mess. He froze, fists clenching and adrenaline pumping, but when his eyes were able to focus again, he was met with a pair of familiar green eyes.

Himself. Or was it? He wasn't sure what to call it, but it was standing where he was, hand half-lifted like it had just been examining it with the same curiosity and fear as he had just been. The boy in the mirror had the same glowing, snow white hair that he had remembered himself having in the video when he'd dueled Wendy. The stared back at him, a look of fear on its face. It was... it was crying. Why was it crying?

The figure in the mirror stared at him for a long moment before, agonizingly slowly, lifted its hand and pointed behind him.

Daniel swallowed and slowly, slowly turned around, streaks of blurry tiles, machines, and vials passing his vision before he had turned all the way around.

_"Hhhheeeellllpppp!"_ someone called.

He blinked, trying to get the world to move, but everything was so slow. He caught sight of two figures cowering behind what he could only assume were a set of chairs, heads up as one of them pointed up at the two green octopuses he had seen before.

"Hhhhhoooolllldddd oooonnnn," he tried to tell them, desperately turning his body to try and help them.

He watched the two figures as they slowly came into focus. Their backs were turned to him, but he could tell that there was a boy and a girl. The girl had black hair and all black clothing, and the boy had a red cap that he was wearing backwards on his head. Daniel fought the invisible force trying to keep him from them, but stopped suddenly when he noticed that he was already over there. Or, at least another him was over there, and it was battling the two green octopuses, protecting the boy and girl that still hid behind their chairs.

Daniel watched, eyes locked to the scene. When the other him finally gave the two octopuses a firm kick that sent that fleeing back to the open door of the green pool in slow motion, the other him landed beside the boy and girl, putting a tired hand on the girl's shoulder and giving her a reassuring smile.

Daniel swallowed and blinked rapidly when he noticed something wet start sliding down his cheek. Slowly, he lifted his hand to his face and pulled it away, looking at the tear on his finger.

He looked up when he noticed the room suddenly start to shift. The metal walls cracked and tore away and black smoke starting pouring into the room.

Daniel shook his head, looking over at the three teens who had not yet noticed what was happening. He held out a hand, eyes wide in terror. "Bbbbbbbbbeeeeeeeehhhhhhiiiiiiiinnnnnnddddd yyyyyyoooooouuuuu!" he called to them, trying to warn them of the danger that was slowly coming into existence behind them.

The boy and the girl did not look at him, but the other him did. He looked up and then slowly turned his head to look behind him.

The world still moved in slow motion, but the black smoke and red, green, and blue fire that was clambering over the walls was not. It crawled over the walls and across the floor, racing to catch him as red eyes opened up from the blackness that had formed at the back wall. They peered out from the shadows, but they weren't looking at Daniel.

Daniel's eyes widened in terror. "Nnnnnnnooooooo! Ppppppplllllllleeeeaaassesee! Ssttoopp! Ssttop! STOP!" he screamed, breaking out of the fog and haze and his limbs finally moving at normal speeds, but he was too late. The black smoke on the other side of the room had gobbled up the boy and the girl and the other him turned around to come face to face with two, devil-red eyes.

And then suddenly the world started to shake, tearing away the visions and dislodging him from the world surrounding him.

"AAAH!" Daniel screamed, scrabbling off of the pillow and backwards until he'd crossed the room and hit the wall with his back, eyes wild with terror.

Raven still sat at her pillow, but her eyes were open and she was staring at him intensely.

Daniel, gasping and panting, noticed that she still would not look away. "What?" he asked her breathlessly.

"Your eyes."

"What... about them?" he asked through each heavy breath that he was still struggling to control.

"They're green."

His next breath caught in his throat.

"Don't be afraid," Raven assured him. "Do you feel it?"

Daniel paused for a second, trying to decide whether or not he could feel anything different. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he _could_ feel something. The constant pressure at his core that he had had since he'd woken up in the Assessment Center on his first day there had lessened. Like it had been relieved by something. "Yeah, I do," he said, then concentrated on the feeling. Then, as suddenly as he had noticed it, the pressure returned. He winced slightly and then glanced up at Raven. "They're blue again, aren't they?"

She nodded.

He considered the implications of that for a moment, then looked at Raven again. "You felt it before, didn't you?"

Again, she nodded.

"What is it? What..." he licked his lips as he decided how to pose his question, but couldn't think of any better way to ask it, so continued, "What am I, Raven?"

She didn't answer him, but he could see that she knew.

"Why won't you tell me?"

She continued to stare blankly at him, but he got the sudden urge to look to his left. He glanced over and his eyes landed on the Warden standing guard at the wall. Why would it matter if a Warden knew? What was he that it was so important to keep it hidden? Sighing in frustration and resignation, he shakily got up and walked back over to his pillow, smoothing it out before sitting down on it again.

"What did you see?" she asked.

"Uh... I saw... me," he said, resigning himself to the fact that the thing that was hidden somewhere in his core was, indeed, himself, "I was fighting some weird, green, floating octopuses. They were in some kind of lab. At least, I think it was a lab. I'm not sure. There weren't any windows, so it could have been a creepy basement."

She nodded. "What else?"

"There were two people there," he said.

Raven's brow twitched upward at that with interest. "Did you know them?"

"I think so, but I couldn't see their faces. There was another me in the room and he fought the octopuses off. He protected the boy and the girl."

Raven nodded. "How quickly did the monster find you?"

"About as quickly as last time, but he didn't come after me."

"He?"

"What?"

"You called it a _he_," Raven observed.

Danny blinked, brows furrowed in concentration as he thought about it. The more he remembered the monster, the more he realized that it _did _feel like a he. Although he wasn't entirely sure what would make him think that. "Uh... I guess I did."

"Was it clearer this time?"

"No. I still can't see anything but his eyes," Daniel replied, rubbing his hands over his face tiredly.

She nodded. "Who did he go after this time?"

"The other me and the boy and girl," Daniel said.

"Did he get them?"

"I don't really know. I lost sight of the boy and girl in the smoke, but I saw the other me. He was... or _I_ was kind of having a face off with... with _him_."

"The monster?"

"Yeah. But I didn't see anything else," he said, wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed at his forehead. He recalled the last part of his dream, the shaking that had felt oddly out of place. "Raven, did you wake me?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Why?"

"I sensed something."

"Sensed something?" he asked. "What do you mean you sensed something? What did you sense?"

She hesitated and the short, few seconds that she was quiet gave him an immediate sense of anxiety. Finally, she answered in a tone that was not entirely even, "I can't be sure, but... I think it might have been _him_."

Daniel felt his chest tighten. "But... how? You said... you said this wasn't..."

She stared at him.

He paled. "Raven?"

"I thought I knew what it was... but I may have been wrong."

Daniel stared at her. "W-what, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second, you... you _said_! You said that nothing could hurt me! Come on, Raven, please, _tell_ me that he can't hurt me," he said, not even caring that it sounded so pathetic. He just needed her to reassure him.

Raven's eyes fell, the first time that she seemed to falter since he'd known her, and that terrified him.

"Oh, shit," he breathed, running a shaking hand through his hair, "Oh, shit, shit, shit..."

"Calm down," Raven commanded, her voice so startlingly authoritative that he flinched, breaking out of his panicked stupor. "I don't know what it is yet and I don't know if it can hurt you, but we're going to need to be more careful than we have been."

He was starting to breathe heavily again, running his hand through his hair and grabbing at the locks anxiously. "Okay, well, we should... we should just _stop._ Just stop trying-"

"You can't," Raven said. "The Talent Scouts won't let you."

"I'll tell them. I-I-I'll tell them what it is," Daniel said frantically, desperate to find a way to avoid the monster inside of him, "I'll tell them what it is and just explain-"

"It won't matter," Raven said. "They'll kill you if they think you're useless. We have to get you to transform without disturbing him_._"

Daniel gawked at her. "D-_disturbing_ him? What the hell does that mean?!"

"Do you remember how I said that you were split in two?"

He stared at her hesitantly, afraid of what she would say. "Y-yeah..."

"Well, I might have been wrong. There might be more than two parts of you. Like I've said before, your emotions are difficult to get a grasp on, but what I felt just before you woke up was… well, it wasn't _you_."

"I don't know what that _means_, Raven," Daniel said in exasperation, trying to wrap his mind around her words and their implications. "Is it me or isn't it?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?!" he snapped.

"It means that it _is_ a part of you, but it isn't entirely real. That's why you can't see it completely."

"So it's me?"

"Sort of."

"You aren't making any sense," he said in a mixture of anger and tiredness.

"I can't explain it to you until I know what it is for sure," Raven replied. "And I don't know that yet because I can't connect with you or it. I just feel its presence."

He sighed heavily, then, in a dry throat, said, "What do I do?"

She looked down for a second before looking up and making eye contact with him. "We need to go again."

He nodded. "Did you have to scare me first?" he asked with a weak chuckle.

"Sit up straight," she said, ignoring him as she got back into a position suitable for meditation. She shut her eyes and began chanting again.

Daniel frowned deeply at her, considering for a moment just not doing it, but he knew she was right. If he didn't try to get control of the other him, then the Talent Scouts would give him to the furnaces. So he shut his eyes hesitantly and began chanting with her.

The second time, things were not as slow as before, but there did seem to be a heavy, white mist distorting everything. His mind took him to different places in his memory; places where he saw the other him fighting off a wide variety of strange looking people. For most of them, they appeared to either have deathly pale skin and hair, or a decay-colored green and white hair. Despite the differences in colors of skin and hair, their eyes were almost always the same. All of them were the same green of his own.

He watched himself fight them all and protect people that didn't even know that they needed protecting, all through a haze of white film. _He_ was always not far behind the other him; watching, lurking, as though waiting for something. The other him never noticed, preoccupied with the strange looking people he was fighting. They appeared to be able to do the same things he could do. They were able to float above the ground as though unconcerned with trivial things like gravity, and some of them could even fire the beams of energy that he had been able to. Nevertheless, the other him beat them all.

Daniel watched each fight with a growing sense of curiosity and familiarity. He knew that he had done all of these things, but the memories felt distant, just out of his reach.

In each battle, Daniel observed the boy and the girl from before, always watching him and sometimes even helping him. Although the details of the features of their faces were obscured, Daniel could see a bit more of both of them. The boy had dark skin and thick-rimmed glasses and always seemed to be carrying some sort of electronic with him. Daniel knew that this had to be his best friend, although he still couldn't manage to get his face into focus. The girl was harder to see. He tried to get closer to her, but every time he tried to advance on the scenes unfolding before him, _he_ would get closer. Raven warned him to keep his distance and not draw _his_ attention, but Daniel felt an almost desperate need to look at the girl's face. It was important. He wasn't sure why, but it was.

"_What is the monster doing_?" Raven asked.

Daniel very carefully glanced over at the dark that was always lurking in the background. The red eyes were no longer watching the other him. They were staring at Daniel. They had a cruel look of amusement in them, like he was giving him a sinister grin from somewhere in the shadows. The look sent a shiver up Daniel's spine.

He gulped audibly and answered in a hushed voice, "He's watching me."

"_Look away._"

Daniel carefully did as she instructed, trying his best to ignore the fact that the eyes did not leave him.

"_Can you see her any more clearly?_"

He knew she was trying to distract him, but he didn't mind. He looked down at the scene unfolding, the other him flying around the sky of the town below and chasing a metallic figure with flaming green hair. Daniel looked down at the street below, scanning for the two teens who were almost always there, usually watching from a safe distance. As he had expected, he found both the boy and the girl watching from behind a dumpster. He tried to clear the fog away, to get at least a glimpse of her face, but she remained out of his vision.

He went to get closer, hoping that if he just got a little bit closer...

"_Daniel, what's happening?_"

"I just need to get a little closer. I think the fog's clearing," Daniel said, inching closer and closer as though creeping towards the edge of a cliff.

"_Stop. Whatever you're doing, stop it._"

He sighed and backed away, looking over to see what his other self was doing, only to find a wall of black smoke blocking his view. A pair of red eyes lay behind it.

Daniel yelped and tried to back away, but cried out when his arm fell into the smoke that had rapidly surrounded him. "Raven! Raven!" he cried, but received no answer.

A deep, echoing laughter spun around him, bouncing off of the walls of the black smoke that was beginning to swallow him up.

"RAVEN!" he cried again, but he couldn't hear her.

The shadows began closing in around him, threatening to engulf him in their depths. A pair of hands emerged from the darkness, reaching out for Daniel's neck.

"Get away!" Daniel shrieked, terror enveloping him as the hands got closer.

His vision flashed and spasmed in and out and suddenly he was standing in the middle of a long street, flame surrounding him and eating the buildings and trees that lined the road. He frantically looked around for _him_, but couldn't see _him_ amongst the flame and smoke. He looked down at his hands, surprised to find that he was human again. He also noticed that his shirt was ripped and smudged with black dirt. He had scrapes along his arms and up his wrist towards his pinkies.

He looked around, squinting in the smoke-obscured darkness. "Raven?" he whispered. He called her name one more time, just slightly louder than the first. She didn't answer.

He swallowed loudly, his heart pounding in his chest. "Dammit, Raven, _please_ answer me."

Still, she did not answer.

"Please don't tell me I'm stuck in here," Daniel begged to no one. He looked around, finding every path blocked save for one. Up the street was the outline of a partially destroyed building. Seeing nothing else to do or where else to go, Daniel picked up his shaking legs and began walking towards it while still keeping a wary eye out for _him_.

As he walked, he noticed something new in the familiar scene from all of his nightmares. Lightning. It danced across the black sky, occasionally striking the sidewalk, building, or tree nearby. He jumped at each strike, noticing that there came no loud boom, as he would have expected, but rather a sound that more resembled a loud bug zapper.

He walked on, feeling an increasing sense of hopelessness come over him. What was he going to do if he couldn't get out? What if Raven couldn't wake him? The hopeless feeling only increased when he began to notice that he seemed to be walking in a continuously loop again, passing the same silhouetted buildings and trees that he had moments before. At first, he thought he was be trapped, doomed to walk the same street over and over forever, until the red glow appeared ahead.

He froze in his tracks, fists clenching and he stared ahead at it. It did not come at him as it had before, but there seemed to be some invisible force urging him to move forward. So, despite himself, he continued on.

There was no haze this time; no fog, no distortion. This time, as Daniel got closer, he could clearly see a building. There was a large sign with red letters at the front, although Daniel could not read the words there; it was just gibberish. The building was missing a large portion of wall and roof, where a huge cloud of smoke was pouring up and out onto the street around it.

Daniel stopped several feet away, looking at the dilapidated structure with an unbidden and strangely strong sense of fear. The feeling came over him with such strength and speed that his body began to shake involuntarily and not even tightening his fists would make the quivering cease.

Still, something called him closer and Daniel obeyed, walking around to the side so that he could get a better view at the inside of the building, which seemed to be clearing of smoke. Eventually, he was able to catch sight of several people, although they were obscured by smoke. They all appeared to be huddled together, standing straight and rigid, as though frozen. Fear wrapped itself around his mind when he caught sight of their eyes; eyes that not only looked wide with terror, but also were looking _above_ Daniel's head.

Swallowing in his suddenly dry throat and chest tightening with dread, he slowly turned and around and met the red eyes of the monster.

Suddenly a bolt came zapping down from the sky, striking him in the chest as he looked up.

"Aaaaaah!" he screamed in pain, momentarily shooting up from where he had at some point laid down. He fell right back down again and curled in on himself, clutching at his right wrist in pain as it stung and sent waves of sharp, white-hot needles up and down his muscles.

After a few seconds, the pain died away, leaving only occasional spasms in its wake that, too, eventually faded. Daniel's eyes were squeezed shut, still holding his wrist, jaw shut tight as he let out sharp, pained breathes through his teeth.

Raven was leaning over him, watching his face intensely. "Are you here?" she asked.

"What... the hell... kind of question... is that?" he asked her angrily, both out of pain and the residual fear that still lingered. His face was half buried in the floor as he tried to shy away from the light that was _killing_ his head. He felt nauseous, certain that if he moved an inch, he would vomit all over the floor.

"Calm down, you're going to make yourself worse," Raven said gently, reaching a hand out to touch him.

"Don't," he snapped, flinching his arm away from her.

"You both must go," the Warden said sternly, looking impatient. When had he moved?

"He's not ready to move yet," Raven insisted, as though she had been arguing with him for a while.

"He is needed elsewhere."

"I know that," Raven said, and she almost sounded irritated.

Daniel tried to block them out, desperate to get his frantic thoughts and overloaded body under control. He hurt. _Everywhere_. His brain felt like jello and he was exhausted. He couldn't do this anymore. _He_ was going to kill him. He couldn't go back in. He couldn't _be _here anymore.

"Daniel, calm down," Raven said, her hand hovering over his back as though she wanted to comfort him, but didn't want to be rejected again. "Breathe."

"Raven..."

"Yes?"

"Can you protect me? And don't-" he paused to lick his dry lips, "-don't lie to me."

She shook her head. "I don't know."

He let out a weary breath. "I can't do this, Raven."

She swallowed, quiet.

"He is needed," the Warden repeated.

"They can wait," Raven said in the same authoritative tone she had used on Daniel before. The Warden stared at her, stunned, and took a small step back. Satisfied that they would no longer be bothered, Raven returned her attention to Daniel, "May I?"

He gave her a small nod.

Gently, she placed a soft, small hand beneath his damp bangs and onto his forehead.

Her fingers were cool and soothing as she gently rubbed circles on his forehead, massaging his head and then moving down slightly to massage circles into his neck. Slowly, the pain subsided enough for him to relax a little and he let out a soft breath of appreciation. "Thanks."

She nodded. "Rest a bit before going to training."

He gave her a tired nod.

"Take your time," she said to him, then stood, gave the Warden a glance, and left the room.

The Warden watched her leave, then looked down at Daniel's still form. His chest rose and fell slowly as a wave of exhaustion came over him. "Are you ill?" it asked him.

Daniel peeked at it through the lids of his eye and then shook his head. "No, I'm fine, I just... need a second."

It tilted a head at him. "You made progress."

"I guess," Daniel groaned.

"Your eyes were green and your hair turned white. You began to scream, but the female could not wake you. I was forced to activate your chip. That is progress."

"Oh, that was you?" Daniel asked, slowly raising his head and sitting up into a slumped position. "I guess I owe you a thanks."

"Do you?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, folding his legs under himself as he attempted to stand. "I was stuck until you woke me up. It wasn't exactly the way I would have preferred to be woken up, but I can't really complain about _not_ getting killed."

"You were in danger?"

Daniel looked at him. "Seriously? All the screaming didn't give it away?"

It stared blankly at him.

"Ugh, whatever," he grumbled, finally managing to stand. "I don't really have time to mess with you. I've got to get to the Assessment Center, right?"

It nodded.

He sighed and went to take a step, only to have his leg give out on him. He dropped to a knee, just managing to catch himself. "Whoa, whoa... whoa... okay..." He glanced up at the Talent Scout. "Uh... do you think you could give me a hand?"

It tilted its head at him and then glanced down at its hand confusedly.

Daniel chuckled. "Not very smart, are you? Can you help me stand?"

It nodded, crossing the room in two, long strides with its abnormally long body and easily hefted him up from the floor. Daniel leaned on it as it led him out of the room.

"So, uh... what do I call you?" Daniel asked it, testing his footing and finally managing to walk on his own.

"Warden."

"No, I mean do you have a name?"

"Students are not permitted that information."

"Oh. So, Bill, then?"

"Bill?"

"Yeah. Bill."

Its brow furrowed as it puzzled over the name, but it made no objection. Daniel and Bill continued down the hallway quietly.

* * *

**It's been a little while and I can't quite remember who asked or if I answered, but I was recently asked about Svetlana on whether or not she was an original character or a commission. To answer, she is an OC, but I am not opposed to doing commissions so long as they are heavily detailed. I can't guarantee I will be able to use every character commissioned or suggested, but I am trying to at least give cameos to other characters. That same person asked if I could add two people as well (I think they were Shock and Gear), but I don't know who those two are or where they're from, so if you'd like me to try and add them (which I might be able to do), then I will need a reference to look them up.**

**Someone else asked if there will be more Marvel characters in this story, and I can assure you that there will be, but they won't show up until part II of this story, which, if I remember correctly, shouldn't be too long now. **

**I will post again this Monday evening, rain or shine. See you then. **


	10. Chapter 10

**I'm aware I say this a lot, but I just want to thank everyone again for all of the incredible reviews on this story. I've been beaming over them for the past two days and it's a huge inspiration to hear that people enjoy my work. Anyway, I'm getting back on schedule and until further notice the updates will be posted on Mondays as usual. Enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

"5125, there is a problem," the head scientist told him in hushed tones as Bill led Daniel into the Assessment Center.

"What?"

"They are changing tactics. I am afraid that their plan is sound," the head scientist said as it led Daniel slowly over to the assessment pod, being sure to turn its head from the other scientists in the room.

"What plan? What are you talking about?"

"They have concluded that pain is not producing any results. They plan to use a toxin that will induce fear and paranoia."

Daniel's heart stopped, hardly believing his terrible luck. Could this day possibly get any worse? "Shit..." he muttered under his breath. "What do I do?"

"There is nothing you can do," the scientist said in dismay. "And there is nothing I can do, either. I have no alternatives to offer them. They are anxious to produce results in order that you may be prepared for training this evening."

"Oh, crap... Okay... okay... is there anything I can do to... to fight?"

The scientist frowned. "You can attempt to resist, but I do not believe you will succeed."

"Thanks for the confidence," Daniel grumbled sarcastically as he stepped nervously into the pod and allowed the scientists to restrain him. The scientists then began prepping the pod. Daniel watched with rising anxiety, eyes flicking around the room as he tried to find a means of escape. He couldn't let this happen. He was tired and doubted he would have the strength to battle whatever they planned to do to him. He saw on the glass that the lights that displayed his heart rate were steadily increasing in speed, advertising to the scientists nearby just how frightened he was.

The lead scientist walked up to the pod, its eyes glancing at Daniel's heart rate before dropping away quickly and looking at the keyboard. Its fingers hesitated over the highlighted circles on the glass, turning its head just slightly to look around, but appeared distressed to find that other scientists were watching the head Talent Scout scientist with anticipation. Sighing in resignation, the head scientist pressed several buttons on the glass and back away, looking up at Daniel once before pulling up more of Daniel's medical information on the glass.

Daniel's heart sank to his stomach as he felt a needle press into the skin of his arm and into a vein, depositing an uncomfortably thick, hot substance into his bloodstream. He winced as the heavy substance moved slowly up and down his arm, working its way through the rest of his body.

The world spun in Daniel's vision, every sound distinctly clear and grating. He was slowly starting to shake as his body tried to fight off the effects. He thought the shadows of the room were starting to grow, so he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus his thoughts that were rapidly growing frantic and paranoid.

"It's just the drug, it's just the drugs, it's just the drugs, it's just the drugs," he chanted under his breath.

"_Is it?_"

Daniel gasped, eyes shooting open as he raised his head to look around the room. The shadows were getting longer, darker, and were slowly crawling up the room towards his pod. Black, twisted claws reached out from within, leaving long, heavy scratches along every surface they touched.

"It's not real," he told himself, watching with wide eyes as the shadows approached, but his reassurances were weak.

"_Are you sure?_" something whispered into his ear.

He whirled his head, letting out a shuddering, frightened breath when he realized that nothing was there. He shook his head vigorously, trying desperately to free himself of his panic.

Movement drew his attention to the other side of the room as something huge and dark passed swiftly across the room, only to disappear into the shadows. Hyperventilating now as sounds and growls and screams resounded in his ears and grated on his mind, Daniel turned to the Talent Scouts, hoping that perhaps they had noticed there that was something in the room, but paled as his eyes landed on the faces of the aliens.

Their eyes were gone. Black holes that were slowly spreading to the rest of the skin on their faces like veins filled with tar. The head scientist turned its eyeless face to him and opened its mouth, revealing several rows of razor sharp teeth as it released a guttural screech. He looked up, discovering to his horror that all of the Talent Scouts in the room were staring at him through empty eyes, opening their mouths impossibly wide as they all screeched at him.

Daniel screamed and shrieked and began thrashing in his restraints with all he was worth, eyes wild with terror and despair. The lead scientist suddenly launched itself at his pod, slamming against the glass and scraping its claws on it.

"No!" he yelped, turning his head away and twisting his wrists as he tried to pry his hands free of the cuffs restraining him. "No, no, no, no!"

"_What'sss the matter, boy?_" another bodiless voice asked tauntingly.

"_Over here!_"

"_We're going to get you, boy…_"

Laughter circled his head, high pitched and mocking.

"Leave me alone!" Daniel cried as the Talent Scouts continued to slam against the glass and hiss at him, teeth dripping with long strands of saliva. The noises and sights began to close in on him, trapping him until he was shaking his head and wheezing from the constricted feeling that came over his chest and lungs.

Then all at once, everything stopped. The room became deathly silent and that Daniel could hear was his own frenzied heart beat and choked breathing. He momentarily stopped his struggling, but refused to open his eyes yet, terrified of what he might see.

After several long, agonizing minutes of silence, Daniel finally chanced a peek, looking out through the thin line of his eyelids. Nothing was there. No shadows. No claws. No Talent Scouts. The room was empty.

Except for him.

Daniel stared confusedly, trying to understand how he could be in two places at once. Or was he not himself?

He was in the pod and he was also on the other side of the room; just standing, head drooped down to his shoulder as though his neck could no longer support it.

"H-h-hello?" he stammered, still shivering.

The other him turned his head, still lolling against his shoulder, to look at him.

"No... n-no!" he sobbed in anguish, tears falling down his face. "No, please, p-please no!"

The other him stared at him through blood-red eyes. He looked sick; his skin pale and thin, his face gaunt and bony. His head jerked to the side and began to convulse on the axis of his neck, like only his head was having a seizure. Then he let out a blood curdling, piercing shriek.

"NO!"

"_I exist._"

"Please, don't, please, please, please," he begged, openly crying as the other him began to walk towards him, occasionally twitching out of existence before reappearing even closer. "No, this... t-this isn't real!"

"Isn't it?"

Daniel gagged as a large hand wrapped around his neck, cutting off his access to air. His terror-filled eyes lifted to look at the monster, who smiled cruelly down at him with a fanged grin. "I told you… I'm _inevitable_."

* * *

The drugs slowly began to fade, but they had taken their toll. By the time the scientists had freed him from the pod, he was shaking so badly that he was unable to stand and simply collapsed into a spluttering, sobbing mess. He didn't know if he'd turned or not and he didn't care. He was still fighting away the visions and paranoia, as the drugs had not completely left him. At each touch from the scientists, he would flinch violently away.

"5125?" the lead scientist asked with concern as he knelt over the boy, who was cowering in front of the pod where he had fallen and not bothered to get up. It reached out a hand to pat his back, but Daniel twitched away from him.

"NO!" he cried in fear and alarm, but quickly reminded himself that it was not the monster trying to hurt him. He was still in the room somewhere, although Daniel had lost sight of him at some point. "Don't! D-d-don't... don't touch me. Jus... just..." he faded off into tired breathing and whimpers.

To Daniel's surprise, the lead scientist retracted its hand. "5125, I am afraid that the drugs have not worn off yet."

"No, shit!" Daniel snapped, trying to pick himself up on unsteady limbs. He put his hands down on the floor to press up, but shrieked when the shadows of his arms shivered and tried to take form, causing him to shriek and throw himself back into a sitting position. He cried in alarm again when he thought he'd placed his hands into something sticky, but looked to find nothing. He sighed heavily in the midst of his panting and looked up at the lead scientist carefully, "When is this going to stop?"

"The effects should cease after a half hour or so," the Talent Scout replied.

"W-w-w-what? An hour? Wait, no, you said... uhm..." he stammered, trying to get his racing thoughts together. "Can't you- what was that?" His head snapped to the side, eye twitching at the sound of screaming birds. "No, that can't..."

"I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do to help you. Take comfort in that you did not transform," it said under its breath so that only Daniel could hear.

Daniel was shaking his head and blinking his eyes heavily and repeatedly, barely able to come out of his stupor enough to comprehend what the Talent Scout was saying to him. "I didn't?"

The Talent Scout looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before saying, again in hushed tones, "You were very brave, 5125."

"I did? When? Ah! Where's my... oh, there it is..." Daniel said with relief once he'd realized that he still had a face. "Daniel. I'm Daniel. It's me. I'm me."

The Talent Scout gave him a small, sympathetic smile before turning to the other scientists still in the room. "Call for some Wardens to escort him to the Training Center."

With some coaxing from the Wardens, Daniel was picked up and taken, with several delays, to the entrance of training center, where his friends and the group from that morning were waiting for him.

"Holy shit you look like... well... shit," Wally observed as Daniel was half-dragged towards them.

Daniel looked the group over warily, feeling certain that the monster was hiding amongst them and asked fearfully. Their eyes kept flickering red and the shadows around them seemed to be trying to claw into them. Daniel shook his head vigorously, panic lacing his thoughts as he tried to determine what was real, his thoughts spinning in circles as his mind argued with itself. When he saw the monster standing amongst his friends, he jerked back in alarm, shouting in alarm. "Aaah! No, stay away from me! Get away!" he cried, clutching his head.

Wally's brow furrowed. "Whoa... are you okay?"

"What happened to you?" Dick asked.

"Dude, are you alright?" Garfield asked concernedly.

Victor stepped forward to check on his friend, but stopped when Daniel recoiled from him.

"Dude, it's us," Garfield said, looking at his friend with a rising sense of worry.

Daniel stared at all of them, watching the group fearfully. What if the monster was one of them? He knew _he_ was around somewhere; had been following him in the shadows and disappeared at some point. Where better to hide than amongst his friends? Or _in_ one of his friends? After all, their eyes _had_ been turning red. The monster could have easily been all of them. His grip on his his head and he squeezed his eyes shut. "It's not real. Gah! It's not, it's not," he chanted under his breath to himself, hardly aware that everyone in the group could hear him.

"Daniel..." Victor muttered helplessly.

"Stay away, stay back! Don't... just let me think..." Daniel said, tears prickling his vision. He needed help but he didn't know that he could trust them. The monster could be with them. Was there a monster, or was that the drugs? Had there actually been any drugs at all or had that been a ploy of the monster's to trick him and make him question himself. He opened his eyes only to find that he was standing in a puddle of his own blood. "Aaah! No! Stop! It's not real!" he shouted, closing his eyes again to block out the image. He was hyperventilating from panic; wanting desperately for all of it to go away.

"Daniel. Look at me."

Daniel opened his eyes and met Raven's, the purple, intense orbs capturing his attention. She stood like the one clear, real thing in the world and Daniel could hardly tear his eyes away. She was a beacon; the shadows could not touch her and the monster dared not approach her. Although his mind offered him no logically reasons as to why, he knew that she was untouchable; a safe haven amidst the terrors that tormented him. He let out a shuddering breath in relief, whispering, "Raven... Help me..."

"I can't help you. You have to help yourself."

"I _can't_," Daniel said in frustration, tightening his fists over the locks of his hair.

"Yes, you can," she said, her voice strong and confident. "Give me your hands."

"I can't, Raven," he pleaded, tucking his hands into his chest. He didn't dare touch her. He didn't want to give the monster a way to get to her. "Please, Raven, no..."

She didn't make the request again, but held her hands out to him expectantly.

Releasing a shuddering, fearful breath, he placed his hands in hers and she gripped them with a comfortingly strong grip. "Take a breath and repeat after me."

He did as she asked and waited for more instructions.

"I am in control."

"I... I am in c-control."

"Again."

She had him repeat it; over and over and over, ignoring the others' trying to tell them that training would soon begin. She would not let him focus on anything but those four words until she was certain that he believed it. So when Daniel saw the monster pass by with a group of students heading in to begin their training, he was afraid, but knew that what he was seeing was a lie. As soon as the realization entered his mind, the monster disappeared.

"Can you manage?" she asked.

He nodded, looked at her from beneath his brow, "Thank you."

"Did... did you fix him?" Garfield asked hesitantly.

"No. I just helped him keep control of himself," Raven told them.

"Vhat happened to him?" Svetlana asked.

"Looks like they gave him some sort of drug. Probably to induce fear, right? To make you turn?" Peter speculated, directing his question/statement to Daniel.

Daniel nodded tiredly, then suddenly all of the events of the day hit him like a wave. His legs wobbled and he started to fall, but not before Victor, Dick, and Raven could reach out and catch him.

"Damn, what are we going to do?" Victor asked. "He's not in any condition to be doing training."

"I think that's the point," Dick said.

"I've got it," Daniel said, giving all three of them thankful nods before firmly placing his feet on the ground and standing on his own. "I can do this. I can. I'm just... not going to be at my best."

"We don't have time to discuss this," Conner said quickly, "we need to get in there."

"Daniel, all you're going to do is stay out of the way. Wally's got you covered. The rest of us will handle the exercise," Dick told him.

"I can-"

"No, you can't," Dick told him severely, silencing any attempts Daniel made to be part of the plan, "and you won't."

"He's right, Daniel," Victor said to his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder. "These guys we're going up against are bigger and badder than you, even on your best day."

Daniel frowned, but didn't have the strength to argue. He didn't want to be dead weight, but he was tired and still under the influence of the drugs, although it was becoming easier to ward off their effects.

"Alright, Danny, let's go," Wally said, patting Daniel on the back in a companionable manner, pulling away awkwardly at the violent flinch he caused Daniel.

Garfield scrunched his nose in upset. "Hey, how come he can give you a nickname and I can't?"

"I don't know," Daniel answered honestly, shrugging his shoulders, "That one doesn't really bother me."

"Or maybe it's just that I have more charm," Wally said with a cocky smirk as he walked past the group and into the Training Center.

Daniel did his best to ignore the enormous spider webs that blocked the doorway, waving his shaking hands in front of him to shoo away the hallucination and trying not to think about how crazy he must look to everyone around him. Raven walked beside him either ignoring or pretending to not notice that he was still seeing things. He didn't care either way. All he cared about was that she was a beacon of light that was dispelling the dark shadows that would have otherwise stolen him away.

They entered the doors into the newly refurbished and reconstructed Training Center, which had been changed from the thousand single domes that the students were used to to thirty-four huge domes, each containing a different kind of "habitat." Daniel's group had been assigned a Australian outback setting. There were high rock walls that made the otherwise flat landscape look like a maze.

"Hey, Dick, do they have an equipment panel?" Conner asked as Dick walked up to the dome to examine the environment more closely. The other boy nodded the affirmative and then accessed a panel on the outside of the dome. Immediately, a holographic image of the Director.

"_Greetings, students. You have all done well and have each grown strong and powerful. But now you must further test your power and utilize the skills you have been taught in order to graduate. Training today will consist of one simple goal; take out the drone._"

"That doesn't sound so bad," Garfield commented hopefully.

"_However..._"

"Aw man." Garfield's ears fell with his frown.

"_You will be facing a second team who has the same goal. Victory can only go to the team that successfully destroys the drone. Each team is permitted to use whatever means necessary to be the winner. So be warned. The first team to defeat the drone shall be special privileges—up to and including personalized meals, shorter work days, and an hour each day for recreation and socializing. Good luck _"The Director's face disappeared and was replaced with a continue button._ "Press continue to review the designated team captain, student rankings, and desired equipment selections._"

Dick clicked continue and the screen showed each of the students on their team (who, at this point, had all gathered around the dome) and the team captain.

"Hey, nice, it's you, Dick," Peter observed with a smile.

Dick's usually sullen face tightened in a concentrated look as he accepted his role with the utmost seriousness. He scanned over the rankings of his team critically before turning to address the students gathered behind him. "Whoever needs equipment, come and get it," he said, moving away to make room for other students to access the panel.

"Did it offer the rankings of the other team?" Peter asked.

Dick shook his head.

"Damn. That could have been useful to know."

"Does it give their numbers?" Victor asked.

Peter looked. "Yeah."

"Read them to me," Victor said, lifting his cybernetic arm and hovering his human fingers over where he had a small, hidden computer that he had been able to use to access some of the Talent Scout's main computer. He used it only on information that was not as protected, so as not to alert the Talent Scout's of his ability to access it.

Peter read them one by one.

"I've got it," Victor said, "There's Julian Keller. He's a 2. Anybody know what he can do?"

"He has the pod next to mine in training," Conner said, "He's a telekinetic."

Victor nodded, moving on to the next. "Laurie Collins. She's a 1," he said, then paused to see if anyone knew her. No one did. "Santo Vaccarro. I dueled him a while back. He's a 3. He's got granite skin. Makes him super tough. Victor Borkowski. He's a 5."

"He iz a lizard," Svetlana offerd.

"Cessily Kincaid. Shit. Another 1. Anybody heard of her?"

"She's some sort of metal. The problem with her is that she isn't really organic, so not a lot hurts her," Dick said.

One after another, Victor read out the names, ranks, and abilities of the other team. Four students were unknown to any of them, but the other five they managed to identify. Megan Gwynn, another 5, was apparently capable of flight and could deal out hallucinogenic dust (which was just the cherry on top of the crappiest cake ever for Daniel), Nathaniel Richards, a 4 with a highly sophisticated metal suit, Yo-Yo Rodriguez, a 2 who was capable of super-speed (although Wally insisted that Yo-Yo was _not_ the fastest), Cassandra Cain, a 2 who was apparently a prodigy in martial arts (at her name, Dick's expression rose in surprise, but he said nothing).

"Damn. They've got a lot of high-rollers," Victor said.

"What do we have?" Garfield asked.

"We have two 7's, 4's and a 3."

"I vill not be of much use. Zhe heat vill be too much for me," Svetlana admitted.

"That's five that will need to be carried," Peter said, rubbing the back of his neck thoughtfully. "If we all carry one each, we can probably swing it."

"Piece of cake," Conner said with a confident nod.

"Hey, dipshits, _I_ don't need to be carried, okay? That ranking was bullshit," one of the students in the group of twenty protested angrily. Daniel recognized him from his first day; he had tried to pick a fight during Task allocation and Dick had stepped in to keep him from hurting another student.

"You're barely a 4, Tommy," Dick said emotionlessly, "You're not going to be able to hack it on your own. So you need a partner."

"Fuck that, man. And you know what? Fuck you, you're not _my_ leader. I'll get that motherfucking drone by myself. You guys do whatever the fuck you want."

Dick rolled his eyes and glanced again at Conner, who seemed to gather the hidden implication and nodded again. "Okay, gather around."

* * *

**There are a lot of characters that I've mentioned in this chapter and will go over again in the next and I want to apologize now in case I misrepresent any of them. There also might be timeline discrepancies as far as these other new characters I've picked out from the Marvel/DC universes, but I can only do so much research before it becomes just too burdensome and I end up winging it. So if some people are outside of the timelines they're supposed to be, I apologize for that, but I really couldn't care less at this point. XP There are a few characters on Daniel's team and the opposing team that are OC's and they will be mentioned in the upcoming chapter. **

**As for the characters I have mentioned thus far, I will provide their hero names in case their real names are unfamiliar to you:**

**Cessily Kincaid: Mercury **

**Santo Vaccaro: Rockslide **

**Julian Keller: Hellion **

**Laurie Collins: Wallflower **

**Victor Borkowski: Anole**

**Benjamin Hammil: Match **

**Cassandra Cain: Batgirl**

**Yo-Yo Rodriguez: Slingshot **

**Nathaniel Richards: Iron Lad**

**Megan Gwynn: Pixie**

**More characters and their hero names will be provided in the upcoming chapter as they are introduced. See you then. **


	11. Chapter 11

After outfitting themselves with weaponry, gadgets, and gizmos of their choices, the group entered the desert setting, they were immediately met by a hot, blinding sun high up in the artificial sky. The stale air smelled of dirt and heat and the ground crunched beneath their feet.

Conner reached down and grabbed a handful of red dirt, letting it run out from between his fingers as he watched it with interest. "Almost feels real," he said.

Dick looked around the high rock walls and down the three paths that lay ahead of them. "Wally, run the perimeter and see if you can find the drone."

Wally nodded and disappeared in an instance, a streak of grey clothes and red hair that vanished before their eyes in a microsecond.

"Wow..." one of the students, who Victor had learned was named Paige Butler, muttered in amazement. "What's _his_ rank?"

"He's a 1," Conner said.

"Damn..." another student, Austin Cole, commented in awe.

Before they knew it, Wally had returned, stopping just in front of Dick and bringing with him a gush of wind that blew over the group, cooling them briefly.

"See it?"

Wally shook his head. "Nope. I _did_ see the other team, though."

"What are they doing"

"They split up into the passes," Wally said, pointing to the canyons behind him.

"How many in the groups?"

"Five in each."

Dick nodded thoughtfully, then stared at the cliffs again. "Got it. We're getting up on the top of those cliffs."

"Roger that!" Wally said, speeding away and up the face of the cliff until he was standing at the top, waiting for the others to arrive.

"Um... how is everyone _else_ supposed to get up there?" one of the other students, Bradley Howard, asked.

"I will carry someone!" Koriand'r offered, grabbing Austin and rising up into the air with the greatest of ease, as though she were _not_ pulling someone in the opposite direction of gravity.

Garfield shifted into a pterodactyl, grabbed Victor's shoulders, and hoisted him into the air. Conner grabbed Svetlana around the waste and leapt into the air, landing heavily on the surface of the cliff ahead of them. Peter took one of the higher ranked students (a girl named Noriko Ashida, who had not spoken a word), lifting the smaller girl onto his back and simply climbing the front of the cliff as though he had superglue on his fingertips and feet. He came back down for Paige.

Daniel watched as Koriand'r and Garfield returned to get Dick and with a look of amazement, having not yet gotten a chance to witness any of his friends' powers in action.

"Daniel?"

He turned to look at Raven, who was staring at him and apparently had been for quite some time. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah... did you say something?"

"I asked if you were ready."

"For...?"

She gestured to the top of the cliff.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm ready."

She nodded and then began to levitate, raising a hand that was immediately covered by a strange black orb that highlighted the outlines of her hand in white. Daniel looked down on instinct on found a similar black orb to the one on Raven's hand now at his feet. He watched in awe as it lifted him off of the ground with her and carried him up to the top of the cliff safely and easily.

"Hey, idiots! I'm still down here!"

The whole group looked over the side of the cliff at the lone figure of Tommy, who was waving his hands around in upset, a hateful glare on his face that was directed at no one in particular.

"I thought you wanted to do this yourself," Dick said.

Peter glanced at Paige with an amused smirk, and she giggled quietly.

"You know what I meant, asshole," Tommy sneered.

"Well I wouldn't want to get in your way," Dick replied calmly, "We'll just leave you to it. Let us know when you've taken out the other team."

"Someone better come down here and get me you son of fucking bitch," Tommy growled, pointing a threatening finger up at Dick.

"You have hands, Tommy. Climb up," Dick said, turning and walking away.

The group looked around at each other uncomfortably when they realized that their leader was serious, but didn't argue and instead began to follow Dick.

"Are we really going to leave him?" Paige asked, glancing back at the edge of the cliff concernedly.

"Yes," Dick replied evenly. "Now everyone keep your voices down. We don't want the other team to know we're coming. Keep an eye out for the drone and keep in mind that there's two 1's on their team."

The group became quiet, following the path of the top of the cliff silently. Dick had the group split up into three smaller groups on the tops of each of the canyons so that every pass could be watched from an ideal vantage point.

Daniel had been group up with Wally, Paige, Peter, and Noriko on the cliff farthest to the left. Svetlana, Conner, Bradley, and Garfield were at the far right and Dick, Koriand'r, Raven, Austin, and Victor were ion the center cliff, giving them a full view into each of the canyons.

For a long while, the trip was quiet. No one spoke for fear of being heard, particularly since any noise made would travel down and echo into the ravine below, alerting the other team as to their presence. The sun burned down on them, taking its toll most obviously on Svetlana, who was slumped and panting from the heat. Conner stood between her and the sun the best he could, although there was only so much shade that he could offer her.

Daniel, meanwhile, was still fighting off hallucinations. Movement would draw his attention to the empty sky, sounds would make him flinch randomly, and he continued to get the feeling of something ominous lurking somewhere that he could not see. He was able to keep at bay the paranoia against his teammates, however, because of Raven walking beside him. Her presence was somehow a comfort and he kept close to her, fearing what may be lying in wait should he veer from her side.

After several long, hot minutes under the sun, the other team was spotted.

Bradley began waving his arms around to alert everyone that he had spotted the other team down in the far right canyon. Conner motioned to ask if they should go down, but Dick shook his head, pointing outwards. Conner nodded and whispered to his group before continuing, Garfield remaining behind and keeping a close watch on the group below.

As soon as the first group had been spotted, so had the second and third. Dick turned to whisper to his group when the silence was punctured by a resounding crack like a bullet and a shiny, silver drone zipped past the middle canyon, bringing with it a gush of wind that nearly knocked some of the students off of the cliff side.

The sound immediately drew the attention of the other team from down below, each of their heads looking up and spotting not only Dick's team, but also the drone that was now rocketing up and down the canyons with startling speed.

"Wally!" Dick shouted.

"On it!" Wally replied, giving Dick a two fingered salute before chasing after the drone.

The other team, by now, had begun climbing and flying up the cliffs. Before they knew it, they were on top of them.

Austin had turned to run once the other team had climbed up, but found his path blocked by a grey creature with glowing blue eyes. It raised its hand, a blue, bubbling substance forming in its hands and Austin threw his arms over his head to shield himself, only to find the creature shot clean off of the cliff by a blast of green. Austin looked up as Koriand'r flew past him, chasing after the creature with intense, glowing green eyes. Austin, believing himself free from danger, turned to leave again, only to narrowly dodge out of the way of another energy blast as Nathaniel Richards, adorning his metallic suit, flew up the pass and on top of it. Nathaniel shot again, but Michael jumped out of the way again. When Austin turned around again, he let out an ear-piercing scream, directing it at Nathaniel, who, even despite the metal armor, had to throw his hands over his ears to shield them from the noise.

Dick and Victor, meanwhile, had ended up back to back. Victor had activated the gun hidden in his cybernetic arm, firing shots and throwing punches at Megan Gwynn, who had tried to take to the sky, only to have one of her wings shot by one of Victor's bolts. She could still fly, but only for short periods and distances, so had to mostly resort to getting near when she could to strike at him. Behind him, Dick had pulled a short stick out of his belt, spinning it around and opening it up to its full length in preparation. A girl with fine, black hair pulled back into a tight pony tail climbed up the wall with an ease, grace, and strength that was so familiar to Dick that he hesitated a moment. He had been expecting her, of course, but seeing her had nonetheless surprised him. It appeared to surprise her as well, because as soon as she had settled on the top of the pass, her eyes met his and she, too, paused. They stared at each other for a long while, conflicted on what to do. The pause was short-lived, however. Cassandra seemed to make up her mind first, and lunged at Dick with a kick that the boy was only just able to deflect in time with his bo-staff.

Raven was up in the air fighting Julian Keller, sending her large, black raven at him, but he blocked it with a powerful force barrier that she could not penetrate. He would then sent out telekinetic blasts of his own at her, and she would easily block them with a boulder she picked up or a force barrier of her own. Both of them knew that they were getting nowhere fast, but neither could break away from the fight, so they continued uselessly sending telekinetic attacks at each other.

At the right cliff, Svetlana was near fainting and an impossible amount of liquid had pooled around her, leaving her looking shriveled and weak. Conner stood in front of her protectively, fighting two people at once. For the majority of the time, his focus was on that of a massive mound of dirt, rocks and grass with a face (the same creature that had been in Wendy's group). Even before being free to use its full potential in the Training Area, it had still been a formidable-looking creature. It was well over six feet tall, broad, and had power behind every punch it threw. If it weren't for Conner's own strength, he would have been smashed into a pile four punches ago. The other combatant tended to flit in and out of the battle, taking a knife and dashing up behind or to the sides of Conner to get a few sneaky slashes in. When the boy realized that his knife was perfectly useless against Conner's superior genetic makeup, he started trying to attack Svetlana. Conner, naturally, had to focus more attention on the boy with the knife, which meant being smashed more frequently by the mound creature in front of him—the latter of whom found no need to change its position at all, or even tactics, but simply let out a barrage of fists on Conner.

Garfield had found himself much too depressed to fight off the two approaching attackers. He knew subconsciously that Laurie Collins was manipulating his mood, but he just couldn't bring himself to care. In fact, he much preferred the idea of laying down and letting everyone else do whatever they wanted while he just wallowed in his misery. Had Bradley not stepped in, Victor Borkowski and one of the other unidentified boys would have finished him quickly.

Bradley, spotting Laurie as she was helped up the canyon, had dissipated into a thick cloud of charcoal-grey smoke, quickly making his way over to the girl and enveloping her, trying to get her to lose focus and choke. She coughed and gagged on the heavy cloud covering her and tried to move while still keeping her control over Garfield strong, but at each cough, the Garfield got a bit more cheerful.

As soon as Laurie's hold on him was completely broken, Garfield morphed into a gorilla, just in time for Victor Borkowski (covered in green scales, with his right arm looking particularly lizard-like and grotesque), to rake his claws over Garfield's arm, which he had raised to defend himself. Not even a second later, Santo Vaccarro was on him, body covered in granite and fist poised to punch him. Garfield swung his large, muscular gorilla arm and knocked Santo's fist away. He then morphed into a rhino and began charging the two with renewed vigor.

Daniel's group on the far left cliff had nearly lost their fight before it had even started. The first person to come up out of the canyon had been a tan-skinned boy with an absurdly tall Mohawk, his exposed skin marked everywhere with various tribal tattoos. He had floated up, along with the rest of his teammates, like gravity had disappeared around them. Once they had more or less swam through the air to land safely on the canyon, Daniel, Peter, Paige, and Noriko all dropped as gravity yanked them down, pressing them into the ground, as though the ground was being forced to eat them up.

Wally, however, had sped off before the Mowhawk boy had come up, circling all the way around the dome and coming up behind the group, the force of the wind he had picked up blowing the enemy team back off the canyon, breaking the concentration of the boy with the Mowhawk. Gravity let up on Daniel, Peter, Paige, and Noriko, and the four sprung to their feet quickly to prepare for the coming fight.

The boy with the Mowhawk had caught his teammates before they could fall to the ground below, and they once again swam to the top of the canyon. Peter attacked first, quickly extending his wrist and shooting a white web from it, wrapping up the Mowhawk boy in a cocoon of webbing. He then quickly yanked the boy towards him and off of his feet, but the Mowhawk boy switched the gravity on the two of them, making them float up towards the roof. Peter shot a web at the roof with his free hand (the other still holding onto the wrapped up Mowhawk boy) and then pulled himself up to the roof, sticking to it and reeling in the other boy towards him. The boy switched the gravity on them again and, try as he might, Peter couldn't keep his grip on the roof, and he was pulled back down to the earth, body landing with a heavy thud.

Down below, Wally had taken on the tedious task of keeping Benjamin Hammil frustrated, while simultaneously fighting off Yo-Yo, who, although was quite fast, was (as Wally had previously assured his teammates) not as fast as Wally. In between passing speedily by Yo-Yo to throw a punch or two, he would run past Benjamin Hammil, putting out the flames that he had continuously been trying to set to his own body. He would get brief chances at lighting himself aflame and would shoot blasts of flame in every direction he could, but Wally would simply spin in circles round him, creating a wind tunnel that snuffed out the Benjamin's every attempt to start a fire. Benjamin growled in frustration, trying to hit Wally with his fist as he would run by, but Wally was too fast for him.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to play with fire?" Wally taunted, stopping briefly to ensure that the other boy could hear him. When Benjamin turned to shoot a ball of flame at him, Wally ran round again and turned it into a puff of smoke. As much fun as it was to humiliate the pyromaniac, however, Wally divided his time with keeping the fire-boy unlit and taking on Yo-Yo (the latter of whom was also multitasking fighting with Wally and causing Garfield a great deal of trouble). Wally zipped by the other speedster—the two of them running at each other and chasing each other around the dome, throwing the occasional punch or kick as they would pass by each other—and then returned to the pyrokinetic to continue tormenting him.

Noriko, meanwhile, having already planned out who she would be targeting, raced off towards Cessily Kincaid, who was already a silvery color as the metal girl morphed into a liquid that began to creep along the canyon top towards the fighting group. Noriko didn't hesitate, running towards the puddle with determination. As she came close, Wally sped by, rubbing his hand together to create a static shock, tapping Noriko on the shoulder as he passed by. Noriko latched onto the electricity Wally had generated, building it up in her hands and letting it crackle between her fingers. Cessily's silvery eyes widened in alarm and she attempted to back away, but not before Noriko could extend her hands, unleashing an electric current on the other girl that had the latter screaming in pain. To keep up the current, Wally continued passing by, rubbing his hands together and passing along the static electricity he built up to Noriko.

Paige had been left with the last of the group, another girl who grew and shrank at will. Paige had refused any kind of weapon when the team had been getting gear, and was, currently, only avoiding the other girl's attack. She seemed almost adamant not to attack, even when the opportunity presented itself.

Daniel, meanwhile, had been watching, his focus going in and out, despite his best efforts to get himself to concentrate on the battle. Paige was off to his right, fighting off another girl who kept growing and shrinking herself and, to him, kept losing her face. In fact, everyone around him seemed to be going through some kind of monstrous physical change or defect that he had to work hard to remind himself was not real. It was not until Benjamin Hammil, briefly relieved from the torment of Wally, started coming at him, bright and on fire, that Daniel finally broke from his stupor enough to avoid the boy's rabid, furious attacks, jumping back as Benjamin sent a wave of flame at him.

Then suddenly the drone zipped by again, another heavy gust of wind blowing through the two fighting teams. Everyone's heads turned to watch it as it stopped several yards away, hovering in the air as though it were waiting to be chased and making the two teams remember their objective. Immediately, the thirty students began running for it, fighting each other at the same time as they raced across the clifftops towards it with renewed vigor.

Daniel's combatant had taken advantage of the wind caused by the drone, running past Daniel while he struggled to keep his balance. Once he'd steadied himself again, however, Daniel whirled round and chased after him, grabbing his shirt and yanking him back, using the force to propel himself forward slightly. Daniel saw the blur of Wally's body zip by, abandoning whoever he had been tormenting to go after the drone. Wally nearly reached it before he was suddenly lifted up into the air by an invisible force and tossed off into the center canyon like a rag doll. Before he could hit the ground, Koriand'r came swooping out of the sky, catching him and carrying him back to the clifftop. As soon as she'd deposited him safely, she was struck by a blast of blue energy from Nathaniel. She turned and immediately engaged him in a battle of blue and green lights that were thrown from each other's hands in an epic light show.

Wally had started to run again, only to stop and start waving his arms around as though he had suddenly gone blind. Daniel glanced back in the midst of his running to see that Megan Gwynn had hit him with some of her hallucinogenic dust.

Daniel swallowed at the sight of it, but knew he could not help him from where he was. He would have to find a way across to the middle canyon, which was approximately thirty feet across. Frowning, he turned to continue chasing after the drone only to find that several students from both teams had already reached it and were not only fighting each other, but the drone as well.

Dick was among some of the students to reach the drone, and was currently being tossed clear across the dome to where they had just started due to a mighty swipe of the drone's hand. Daniel gaped at Dick's flailing body, hardly believing the strength that the drone contained and wondering how on earth they were supposed to take it on with that strength. He watched to make sure that Dick was rescued and sighed a breath of relief when Raven came out of a black, swirling vortex to catch him before he could hit the ground.

The drone, meanwhile, was firing bolts of red beams from its eyes and brushing off boulders flung at it from the telekinetic and beams from both Koriand'r and Julian Keller. Nothing seemed to be affecting it. As each new student approached, it would fly at them with lightning speed and deliver such powerful punches that the sky started to rain incapacitated teenagers. As Daniel got closer, he began to question his decision to try and take it down. His second guessing was only strengthened when the drone suddenly zoomed down to the clifftop of the middle cavern, driving its fist into the rock. The whole structure shook and began crumbling under the drone's fist, quickly turning into an avalanche that forced all of the students still on top of the crag to turn and run in the opposite direction, lest they fall into the canyon with the crumbling boulders and rocks.

Daniel stopped running, watching the destruction with wide eyes. How on earth were they supposed to-

He whirled around just in time to see a wave of fire coming at him. He raised his hands to shield himself, feeling the flames bite into his arms, wrists, and hands.

Then the pressure at his core eased and when he opened his eyes again, they were glowing green.

The sensation that came over his body was familiar and although he was at first alarmed by the sight of the white gloves that now adorned his unburned hands, he wasn't afraid. Because it wasn't someone else wearing his skin. This time, it was him.

Daniel looked up at Benjamin Hammil, letting power course down his arm and into his hands that immediately began to glow green.

He stared at him for a second, and Benjamin Hammil momentarily looked confused before recognition and fear fell over his face, eyes wide with alarm. Benjamin Hammil gave Daniel one last look before immediately turning to flee, not daring face the creature that he had seen nearly kill Wendy only a few days prior.

Daniel didn't chase him, but instead looked over at the drone that was still wreaking havoc on the other team and his friends. All of the students, on both teams, were on the retreat at this point, fleeing from the rampaging drone that was tearing apart cliffs and sending students flying this way and that. Conner, Wally, and Cessily Kincaid from the other team were the only ones that were doing remotely well, and that was only because they were managing to dodge or block the drone's attacks. None of them were being able to do any damage to it. It ignored its attackers, eyes focusing on the nearest student, which was Paige, who was not as fast as the others and could not seem to get out of the way in time. The drone's eyes glowed red and fired two beams at her.

Daniel's eyes went wide at seeing her in trouble and, without effort or thought, he rose into the air and flew down to where she was running (she had somehow managed to get down below into the canyon on the far right) reaching her within seconds and snatching her up in his arms before the two red beams could reach her. She yelped in surprise, looking up at Daniel's face with a mixture of fear and awe.

Daniel was shocked at how easy it was to move and fly around. Frankly, he was surprised that he was managing it at all, but it had been as easy as walking; like muscle memory.

Daniel flew quickly, ignoring the look of awe Paige was giving him and concentrated on the task at hand. He deposited her near the entrance before flying off again to distract the drone from attacking his friends. Getting into a position above it, he grew two balls of green light in his hands and shot them down onto the drone's back. All the shots managed to do was make it fall forward slightly, but did no damage to its outer shell. It turned around, eyes locking onto him and beginning to glow red.

"Aw, crap," Daniel moaned, clenching his fists and flying off as two red beams chased him from the drone's eyes. He dodged and zipped through the air, winding this way and that until the energy beams ceased.

The drone, ignoring the other students now, flew up into the air after Daniel, who had forgotten just how fast the drone could fly. It was on him before he was even aware that it had left the ground, a metallic hand latching onto his throat and eliciting a choked gasp from the white-haired boy before it tossed him effortlessly towards the wall of the dome. Daniel caught himself in midair, spinning himself around and firing two more shots at the drone, who dodged them with ease.

"Oh, come _on_!" Daniel groaned in frustration, continuing to fire a barrage of the green orbs at the drone. He knew he needed the same power he had used during his fight with Wendy if he had any hope of making progress with the drone, but he was terrified to reach any deeper into his core than he already had. He could feel something_ lurking_ deep inside and felt certain that if he reached for any more power, he was unwittingly unleash it on not only the drone, but all of the other students trapped in the dome with him.

Suddenly he heard a shout from ground level, "Daniel!"

His head fell to see who was calling him and the drone took advantage of his momentary distraction, coming down on him from above and driving a fist into his abdomen.

"Oof!" Daniel grunted, his body propelled down into the dirt below with a loud thud that made him see stars. He lay there for a moment, a hand on his head and his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to fight off the wave of dizziness that came over him.

"Daniel!" Dick shouted at him.

"_WHAT_?!" Daniel shouted back.

Dick ran up to him, kneeling down and checking him over. "Are you alright?"

Daniel nodded. "That thing's tougher than it looks," he said with a weak chuckle as Dick helped him to his feet.

"We need to find a way to get through its armor-" Dick began, then suddenly looked up, shoved Daniel out of the way and jumped back as the drone landed in between them, fist slamming into the dirt and leaving a deep crater in its wake.

The drone set its sights on Dick, throwing punches and sending beams of red light towards the boy, but Dick's acrobatic ability worked to his advantage as he jumped, flipped, and rolled out of the line of fire. This tactic, however, would not work forever, and he knew it, so he attempted to take the initiative in the fight. Once he had dodged a punch that would have smashed him into the ground, he jumped up to get on the drone's back, only to get swatted away by a flick of the drone's wrist that sent him flying back into the wall of the dome, smacking his back and head against it hard enough to knock him out cold.

"Dick!" Daniel cried in alarm, but didn't have time to check on the other boy. The drone was advancing on him again.

Daniel got into a battle stance, ready to take it on at ground level, when he noticed several of the other team's students come rushing at it from the side. Victor Borkowski jumped it, trying to rip apart the metal plating with its claws to no effect, Noriko sent two waves of electric currents (supplied by Wally, who had apparently managed to recover from the hallucinogenic dust long enough to aid her) at the drone, but they were absorbed on the surface, and the mound creature had been pummeling it with boulders, but nothing was working.

The drone paid these attacks no heed, continuing walking towards Daniel as though it did not notice it was being attacked.

Then Svetlana came out from behind a dislodged boulder, suddenly vanishing into a cloud of white mist that made it way out from behind the boulder and into the drone. It immediately began to twitch and spark, but Svetlana could not hold the form she was in for very long and before she could short-circuit the drone's inner wiring completely, she had to pull away and return to her humanoid form. She dropped to the ground in front of the drone, passed out from heat and exhaustion.

Before the drone could mindlessly step on her, Wally zoomed by, grabbing her up in his arms and running off with her to find a safe place to put her. He returned seconds later for Dick's unconscious body, taking on the job of gathering those who were incapacitated and finding them safe places to stay until they awoke. He returned within the same second, raising a leg to kick the drone out of Daniel's path, but it got his foot with ease and tossed him away like a rag doll.

The drone finally reached Daniel, swinging its fist for Daniel's jaw, who moved to the side and delivered a punch of his own that connected with the metal chin and made the drone's head snap to the side. Daniel blinked, surprised by his own strength and, feeling encouraged, went to punch it again. The drone was prepared the second time and, even though its head was turned the other way at an odd angle, knew where Daniel's fist was and grabbed it before it could connect. It then squeezed, threatening to shatter every bone within, as it twisted Daniel's arm around until it was behind him back. Daniel's mouth opened in a silent scream as he grunted and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight back, but only crying out further when the drone began to shove his arm upward against its natural alignment.

Suddenly a web shot out from above, latching onto the hand that had Daniel's arm trapped and yanking it away, freeing Daniel for long enough to scramble away, cradling his burning limb.

"Run, Daniel!" Peter yelled from where he was hanging on the wall of the dome, shooting webs at the drone to distract it long enough for Daniel to get away. The drone fired off red beams from its eyes at Peter, but the boy dodged it, continuing his attack after each dodge.

Conner suddenly came sprinting out from the wreckage of the cliff, racing up behind the drone and wrapping his arms around it, constricting its arms to its sides and lifting it off of the ground. "Wrap it up, Peter!"

Peter jumped down from the wall of the dome and began running around the drone in circles, spinning his web all around it like rope. "Is that good?" he asked.

Conner stumbled when the drone bucked, pushing its arms out in an attempt to break Conner's hold of it. "Gah! No, it needs more!" he said, groaning as the drone slowly began to get the better of him, pushing apart not only the boy's arms, but also beginning to tear the web around it.

Cassandra Cain suddenly appeared behind them, jumping up onto the drone's shoulders and sinking a small knife into the creases of the drone's outer shell, trying to pry it off, but she couldn't get the leverage she needed.

Meanwhile, Julian Keller, perceiving Conner and Peter's attempts to stop the drone as their being close to victory, picked up several boulders from the piles around them and began tossing them at them, carefully avoiding hitting his teammate, who was still struggling to remove the plating from the drone's body.

Conner, who was too busy trying to keep the drone contained, did not notice and was struck in the back, shoving him forward and causing him to break his hold on the drone, which immediately tore through the rest of the web and whirled around, delivering an uppercut to the already off-balance boy behind it, sending Conner flying back into another pile of rocks. It reached up over its head, intending to grab Cassandra Cain off, but she leaped away when she realized her efforts had proven useless. Losing sight of her, the drove then turned and sped over to Peter, grabbing the boy's neck before he had a chance to defend himself and squeezing.

Daniel, realizing what was happening, jumped up, disregarding his screaming arm, and ran full-speed at the drone, shoving his shoulder into its chest and knocking it off of its feet and making it release Peter's neck.

Daniel grit his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, still moving until he had sandwiched the drone between himself and the wall of the dome. Once he'd done so, he noticed that the drone was suddenly shrouded in black, its outlines highlighted with white. He looked up and behind him, finding Raven hovering a few feet away, hands outstretched and eyes glowing a luminescent white as she muttered, "Azarath metrion zinthos..."

Daniel, confident that Raven could keep the drone still, reached forward to attempt to tear off the head as Victor had suggested.

He didn't get a chance to even touch it before something had suddenly grabbed his head and lifted him off of the ground, squeezing his skull. He gasped in pain and reached up to try and free himself, feeling only dirt and grass. He paled when he realized who it was; Wendy's crony. The mound creature turned him around so that they were face to face and roared its fury at him before slamming his head into the ground. Daniel's vision swam and a headache exploded in his head immediately. He had no time to brace himself before the mound creature did it again, apparently content with beating Daniel to a pulp rather than defeating the drone, which Raven was too focused on containing to help him.

Peter, who was recovering still from a crushed windpipe, raised his tear-filled eyes to see Daniel getting pounded into the ground. Face red and head swimming with the worst headache of his life, Peter got up from where he'd fallen and shot a web into the mound creature's eyes, blinding it.

The mound creature, startled, roared and dropped Daniel's limp body to the ground, raising its hands to its eyes to try and pry away the web blocking its vision.

Daniel lay where he'd fallen, panting weakly. There was blood on his face, but he wasn't sure where exactly it had come from. He was fairly certain that his nose was broken, but he didn't have time to catalog his injuries. He raised his weary head, trying to get the blurry images he was seeing to focus, and began crawling away from the mound creature.

To his own surprise, he noticed that the pain was already starting to fade. His vision cleared and before he knew it, all he felt was winded. Pleasantly surprised, he shook his head of the dizziness and stood up, turning around to see Peter on the ground, looking red-faced and in pain, but still continuously firing webs into the mound creature's eyes to keep it occupied. Raven was still chanting, but her hands were shaking and the drone was struggling in earnest, slowly but surely breaking out of Raven's hold.

Daniel ran a hand through his hair in overwhelm. He wasn't sure how they were going to beat the drone. With the other team attacking them left and right, half of their own team unconscious, and the drone nearly unbeatable, there was simply no way that they were going to be able to win. With a lack of anything else to do, Daniel ran up to the drone, ready to hit it as hard as he could, as many times as he could, but before he'd even taken a step, Raven gasped in pain and fell to the ground weakly as her hold on the drone broke.

It immediately launched off of the wall of the dome towards Raven.

Daniel's eyes went wide and he flew to her aid, landing in front of her prone form and holding out his hands to the oncoming drone. A rush of power flowed out from his core to his body, making his entire body tremble with it, and suddenly he had surrounded himself and Raven with a swirling green shield. The drone rammed into it, the metal of its outer shell crunching as it continued flying into it, trying to break it down. Daniel's eyes flashed, covering his pupil in green as power surged up out of his core and through his entire body. The shield began to hum and pulse with energy, knocking the drone back again and again. Daniel took a step forward, pushing it back as the pulses of energy got wider and wider, until suddenly the shield exploded, sending out a massive shock wave that tossed aside boulders, rocks and the drone. It slammed into the wall of the dome with a crash, but before it could get up, Daniel had raised his hands again. He shot a beam of green power that pinned the drone between the wall, barraging it and tearing away at its metallic outer layer. The paint was ripped away, then the metal itself until the blast began to bore a hole into its chest, expanding until it shrouded the entire drone in an ever growing beam of green energy.

Raven was staring at Daniel in shock, watching his eyes turn brighter and brighter.

And then he heard it.

_"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"_

Daniel's eyes grew wide and he began to scream to the top of his lungs. His arms and hands shook as the blast he was firing started to grow, bigger and bigger, and, having already torn straight through the drone, began tearing at the wall of the dome, which groaned and shifted at the onslaught.

Raven's eyes widened in alarm and she touched his arm. "Daniel, stop!"

He flinched at her touch, his eyes, wild with fear, moved over her, but didn't see her. He was beginning to pulse as the shield did the same in small, but powerful waves that were pushing Raven further and further away from him.

"Daniel! Wake up, Daniel!" she screamed at him, trying to get him to come back to reality.

He continued screaming, a horrible, soul-shaking scream that seemed to go on without end, never once ceasing to take in air. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The students in the dome that were not unconscious looked on with horror in their eyes, covering their ears to drown out the blood-curdling scream that was escaping the green-eyed boy's lungs.

"Daniel!" Raven called again, trying to reach him, but the waves were growing wider and wider, knocking her backwards with each pulse. Still she tried; she tried concentrate and touch him psychically, but found her powers weak. Confused, she tried again, but still, the power would not come to her.

Suddenly Peter appeared beside her, grabbing her shoulders and turning their backs to Daniel. "Raven, we have to get out of the way," he said, raising his voice so that he could be heard over the screaming, "Those pulses are going to keep growing until he runs out of energy, and there's no telling when that will be. We need to get as far away from him as possible."

Raven was about to protest, but knew Peter was right. So the two limped off, trying to get some distance between them and Daniel, whose pulses had stretched out several feet away from him. He wasn't aware of the fact that his suppressor had not only been turned on, but had been turned to the highest level possible in an attempt to subdue him. He couldn't feel it over the surge coursing through him and the absolute pure terror that was plaguing his mind. All he could hear was their screaming; their horrible, horrible screaming. Then suddenly, they were silenced.

His scream turned into a gut-wrenching sob and, just as suddenly as it had come, all of his power faded. Two white rings formed at his core and went over him, returning him to his human form, which immediately passed out in the dirt.

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**I probably spent more time writing this chapter than I did on the entire story. Keeping up with what everyone was doing was so difficult, but I hope it was worth it. Here are the other characters who you may not know:**

**Noriko Ashida: Surge**

**Mound Creature: Groundswell**

**Other characters are OC's**

**I plan on doing more cameos in the future (particular in Part II of this story) and if you have anyone you would particularly like to see, tell me their names and what universe they're from and I will do my best to include them. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll update Monday as usual. See you then.**


	12. Chapter 12

**I have been so excited about this chapter, and I think you all will see why. Sorry about posting this so late in the evening. Had a bit of a busy day. Anyway, here it is, technically posted on Monday. Lol. I'm nearing the end of what I have written down, so I will let you all know when updates will start becoming more sparse. **

**There is a character later in the chapter who I haven't named in this chapter, but will be revealed later. Enjoy the update!**

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When Daniel awoke again, he was strapped to a horizontal medical examination table. The straps seemed a bit excessive this time, covering his wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, hips, and chest. The right armrest was distended, allowing easy access to his right arm, which was turned face-up. From where Daniel lay, he could see a fresh cut where the scar from his suppressor had been. He looked at his wrist groggily for a moment as he fought off the wave of nausea that threatened to empty the contents of his stomach before glancing around the room as far as his restraints would allow. Medical equipment surrounded the table he was laid on and he could hear the chatter of the Talent Scouts who he assumed to be nurses and doctors walking up and down the hallways outside of the small room he had been placed in. Just outside of the door, and just within his line of vision, Daniel could see the Director and Envoy, who appeared to be arguing.

The Director and Envoy stood in the hall, apparently deep in discussion.

"Have I ever asked anything of you?" Envoy asked, its face contorted in frustration.

"You have had no need to," the Director replied.

"I have not, but I am begging you now, Director, _destroy_ that child," Envoy pleaded with her.

"I will not. I am surprised to hear you even suggest such a thing after what we have seen him achieve. Would you toss aside all of our hard work and endless searching so easily?"

Envoy sighed and glanced into the med bay, eyes settling on Daniel, who quickly averted his eyes so as not to alert them to the fact that he was listening. "I do not wish to question your judgment, but that boy is dangerous. Worse yet, we cannot _control_ him."

"The new suppressor has taken care of such concerns, Envoy," the Director replied confidently. "And he will be started again on Enrichment. Your worrying is unnecessary."

"Perhaps," Envoy said with a deep, troubled frown.

"Have I satisfied you for the time being?" the Director asked patiently.

The other alien looked at her and gave a small nod.

The Director placed a long hand on Envoy's shoulder. "Worry not, my friend. I will see to it that all concerns regarding this student are properly addressed."

Daniel watched the two talk a bit more, letting the grogginess fade and the words sink in. He turned his head again to look at the new cut on his wrist. His suppressor had been replaced, although he wasn't sure why. He wondered if perhaps it had been damaged during the last training exercise. As he considered this, it suddenly occurred to him what had happened in the training dome. He had thought that they were not bothering to stop him once he had lost control for some reason, but the more he considered the Director's words and his new cut, he realized that that had not been the case. They hadn't been _able_ to stop him. His suppressor hadn't worked.

His thought process was interrupted when a figure stood in front of the wrist he was staring wide-eyed at. Looking up, he saw the glint of a silver pendant on the jacket of the Talent Scout before him and knew immediately that it was the head scientist.

"Did I hurt anyone?" Daniel asked immediately, voice cracking slightly due to the dryness of his throat.

The head scientist shook its head. "No, no one was hurt. Not by you, at least. How are you feeling?"

"Like a bulldozer had a field day in my head," Daniel replied dryly, wincing at the pulsing pain emanating from his brain.

The scientist stared at him for a moment before its brow rose in recognition. "Ah. You mean you have a headache."

Daniel squinted his eyes at him.

"Well just as soon as the medical examiner has finished with you, I have water and medication for you to take."

"Thanks...um..." Daniel hesitated when he realized that he had no idea what to call this particular Talent Scout, "What do I call you?"

"Call me?"

"Yeah, like your name. You have a name, right?"

"Of course I do, but students-"

Daniel sighed tiredly. "Look, I don't care if it's your real name. I just don't want to call you 'Badge Guy,' that's all."

The Talent Scout looked puzzled, but after following Daniel's gaze to the pendant, chuckled in understanding. "I would not want you to call me that, either," he replied in good humor. He glanced around the room to make sure no one was close enough to hear before adding, "You may call me Wachit."

Daniel laughed at the strange name, "Great. Thanks, Wachit. So... um... can I go now?"

"I am afraid that is not my call. It is the medical examiner's. As soon as he has finished with you, you may leave."

"Okay, well, if he's in charge of me right now, then what are you doing here?"

"I came to determine whether or not your physiology has changed due to your recent transformations."

"What'd you find?"

"Changes," Wachit said excitedly.

Daniel's brow rose in surprise. "Really?" he asked, just as curious as Wachit was.

"Yes, this is quite fascinating. You see, your body has taken on a much more resilient biological makeup. You're stronger, faster, you heal more quickly, so on. And, it would appear, that you are only getting stronger, which is odd, indeed. In addition, I have observed some oddities in your brain."

"In my brain? What's wrong with my brain?" Daniel asked nervously.

"As far as I can tell, there's nothing _wrong_ with it, but there are some unusual brainwaves. In fact, they're so unusual that I have no explanation for them. I'm surprised I missed them the first time I examined you."

"Not even a guess?" Daniel pressed, nervous for his own sanity. "I mean, isn't unusual brainwaves a bad thing?"

"I would not worry. You are functioning perfectly. It is just an oddity that I have yet to explore further."

"So I'm not going to start talking to invisible people or anything like that?"

"I do not imagine that you will experience any mental issues, no." Wachit replied with an amused chuckle.

Daniel chuckled a little, "Yeah, that's what I was asking. Good to know."

Wachit smiled at him before turning slightly as it prepared to leave, "Well, I must be going. I have other students to attend to. Rest while you have the opportunity. I suspect that when we see each other again tomorrow, it will be on more pleasant terms. Perhaps we will not see each other at all, given your team's victory today. Congratulations."

Daniel nodded his thanks.

He was released after having a few more tests performed on him (all of which had been pointless, as every injury that he had sustained in the dome had inexplicably healed themselves) and was sent off to rejoin the rest of the students in the cafeteria for lunch. Bill escorted him, as usual, but when they were about halfway down the hall, Bill abruptly stopped walking.

Daniel stopped as well, looking back at the alien for direction.

Bill made no indication that it planned to move again and had a far-off look in its small eyes; like it was no longer seeing anything. Daniel, confused and not wanting to get into more trouble by violating the strict guidelines of the Intensive Control that he was under, waved his hand in front of the alien's face carefully. "Bill? Aren't we going to the cafeteria?"

"Oi… this thing's got a stronger will than it looked," Bill said_._

Daniel swallowed. Bill's mouth was moving, it was Bill's voice speaking, but Bill wasn't the one talking. He took a step back, unconsciously clenching his hands into fists. "What'd you do with Bill?"

"Eh? Bill who?" Bill's voice asked, looked down at his body, and then back up at Daniel. "What are you, a numbskull?"

Daniel stared at him, confusion and caution etched into the features of his tired face.

"You're gonna make me spell it out for you, huh? Oi... fine. Take a good look," Bill said and then suddenly something seemed to pass through the flesh of Bill's shoulder, like a solid object through water, and Daniel blinked in confusion at the green vulture head that had appeared on Bill's shoulder.

The vulture appeared extremely old, its beak cracked, some of its feathers grey, the red of its eyes lacking in vibrancy and, for some odd reason, it was wearing a fez with a skull on it.

At first, Daniel simply stared, dumbfounded, when suddenly a connection formed in his mind, like a spark, and he realized that he recognized the creature.

He _recognized_ something.

He didn't quite remember how he knew the strange green bird, but he knew that he knew it and he could hardly contain the excited, open-mouthed grin that came over his face. "Hey... hey, I-I know you! I _know_ you!" he exclaimed with excited glee.

The bird head disappeared back into Bill's body and Bill spoke again, but this time with a decidedly old, thick accent that reminded Daniel of a member of the mob, "What's with you?" the bird asked, raising one of Bill's eyebrows inquisitively. "Get knocked around one too many times? Come on, kid, I'm trying to execute a rescue mission here and you're being difficult! I'm one thousand and nine years old! Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold onto a body like this?! Wait until you're _my _age-" it began grousing, quite audibly, and without any foreseeable end, and Daniel, fearing that someone nearby might hear, put a finger to his lips and tried to shush the bird.

"Shh! Shhhhh! Stop! _Stop_! Okay, okay, I get it! I'm being difficult!" Daniel said in hushed, urgent tones. "Please, please, just be quiet!"

"And getting up into space isn't exactly a cake walk!" the bird complained. "Even my _talons_ are sore! I've got bunions in places you don't even want to know about!"

"Shut up!" Daniel insisted, holding his arms out in a placating gesture and looking up and down the hall nervously, "Someone's going to hear you!"

"Eh? Who cares? Come on, kid. I've got to get you back down to the planet now or I'm going to get plucked," the bird insisted.

"Go? I-I can't," Daniel said. "Look, these aliens, they took away our memories and our powers are monitored. I can't use them unless they let me. Besides, what about everybody else? There's got to be thousands of other kids on this ship."

"I didn't come here for those bozos. I came for you. Now quit with the whining and-"

"I can't leavethem," Daniel said determinedly, stepping back when Bill reached out a hand to grab his arm. "Look, someone sent you here, right? Just tell them where we are and that there are other people here that need to be rescued."

"Do I look like a carrier pigeon to you? I'm not here to pass messages back and forth between you two. I'm here for you and I'm not leaving without you in tow," the bird said, lunging forward to grab him again.

"Back off!" Daniel twisted his body away, pushing against the back of Bill's head and using its forward momentum to send the alien's body away from him. Daniel's body immediately and instinctively fell into a defensive position, watching Bill turn around confusedly.

"I'm trying to rescue you here and this is the thanks I get?!" the bird asked indignantly.

"I want to be rescued," Daniel replied, "But I'm not going to leave all of these other kids behind. If you can get in here to rescue me, then you can rescue everybody else the same way."

"Hey, getting here isn't as easy as I make it look!" the bird grumbled and then suddenly Daniel saw an old, battered wing spring out of Bill's side, like it had been cramped inside of the alien's body and could no longer fit. "Oi... I'm losing this body. Are you serious about staying? This is going to be your only chance... at least for a while."

"I'm serious," Daniel replied certainly, although it killed him a little inside to say it. "If whoever sent you wants to rescue me, then they're going to have to rescue everybody."

The bird sighed heavily. "I can't wait to explain _that_ to him," it mumbled to itself unhappily. "Fine. But if I end being the Thanksgiving turkey replacement this year, I'm going to haunt you until you're as old and wrinkled as me!"

Daniel was about to reply to this, but noticed that, all of a sudden, Bill's eyes came back into focus and it began looking around the hall with a superbly perplexed expression. It looked down at itself and then up again at Daniel, who was trying now to look as innocent as he could.

"You okay, Bill?" he asked.

"I was invaded," Bill replied in its usual monotone.

Daniel furrowed his brow at it with confusion. "Invaded?"

"There has been a security breach," Bill said, lifting its arm and typing on the small, holographic computer screen that was nestled in the band on its arm. After a moment, Bill looked up at Daniel again. "Did you experience any loss of time?"

"Um... I don't think so. Why? What's going on?"

Bill grunted as it looked at the screen. "The situation will be handled," its eyes flicked up to Daniel again. "You will speak with the Director later this evening before you begin Task."

Daniel groaned, rolling his eyes. "Oh, come on! Don't I see her enough? This is really starting to feel like favoritism."

"You must report to the cafeteria. Your eating time has already been cut by one fourth," Bill said, leading Daniel again through the halls as though they had merely come across a wet floor sign and _not_ some green bird creature that had briefly commandeered Bill's body.

The bird occupied Daniel's mind exclusively as he was led into the cafeteria and given his usual plate of brown mush. That creature had somehow gotten into the ship, probably wandered around _unnoticed_, taken over a Talent Scout's body, and then disappeared without a trace. Questions whirled through Daniel's mind; how had the bird gotten into the ship unnoticed? How had it taken over the body of Bill as it had? And, most importantly, was someone going to come to save them?

Daniel went to his table, where his entire team had gathered, bandaged and banged up from the fight they had endured, and talking about the events in the dome.

Wally looked up from his food as Daniel sat down and gawked at him. "What the hell? Not even a scratch?"

Daniel shrugged. "I guess I've got thick skin."

"Tell me about it," Peter commented, "That giant dirt pile looked like it was about to dislodge your head from your shoulders."

"Heh, yeah. Thanks for the save on that, by the way," Daniel said to Peter.

"Dude, that fight was sick!" Garfield said excitedly. "Did everybody see that energy beam Daniel did!?"

"You were most incredible!" Koriand'r agreed.

Daniel gave a half-smile. He might have thought it was amazing, too, if he hadn't of completely lost control of himself at the end. He doubted if they would have been as excited as they were if they knew just how much of a danger he had put them in.

"I'm sorry I vas so unhelpful," Svetlana said sadly, changing the subject slightly, to Daniel's relief. "Zhe heat overcame me."

"You did your best, Svetlana. You don't have anything to be ashamed about," Conner said, smiling reassuringly at her.

She smiled gratefully. "As did you. I vas amazed zhat you vere able to hold onto it for as long as you did."

"It would have been a lot shorter if Peter hadn't have stepped in."

"Peter was kicking ass," Austin commented, raising a cup of water towards the brunette in a toast.

Paige nodded in enthusiastic agreement, adjusting her right arm, which was currently being cradled in a sling. She had various bandages here and there where she had likely gotten cut by the collapsing canyon that she had been only just able to outrun. "You really were amazing, Peter."

Peter smirked, but raised his hands to stop everyone. "Yeah, we all did a great job, but as much as I like giving and receiving compliments, I _have_ to know what ended up happening to Tommy. Did anybody see where he ended up? I didn't see him at all after we left him behind."

Garfield, who was among the worst as far as physical damage concerned (covered in bandages, bruises, cuts, and casts) laughed, "Oh yeah, get this! He was cowering at the door the whole time!"

The whole group burst into laughter.

"Are you serious?!" Austin asked, wiping a tear from his eye.

"How'd he manage that?" Daniel asked.

"He was invisible. That's his power," Dick said.

"How did you know zhat he vas hiding, zhen?" Svetlana asked.

"He was invisible, but his shadow wasn't."

Wally laughed, shaking his head. "What a weasel. You know, I think I ran into him at some point..." he laughed again, head falling back, "I think I knocked him out!"

The group laughed at that and made several more jokes about Tommy, but the fun died down when Dick glanced up as someone passed and raised his hand, stopping the tall, broadly built, dark-skinned boy. "Hey, did you find out?"

The other boy nodded, turning to address the entire table. "Oh, yeah. Everybody else had the same drone."

"No way..." Garfield said, surprised. "Everyone?"

"Yeah. Bastard Talent Scouts went crazy with that one. Two thirds of every single team got injured and about a dozen kids died."

Koriand'r put her hands over her mouth as her eyes watered. "Oh, that is very sad!"

"Are you serious?" Austin asked. "Who?"

The other boy nodded, shaking his head. "I didn't get their numbers, but I heard they were mostly 6's and down. That's just fucked up, if you ask me, putting anything below a 3 against that thing."

"Did anybody else beat it?" Michael asked.

The other boy shook his head. "Nobody. Your team was the only one that managed to destroy it," the boy said, then glanced down the table at Daniel. "How'd you do it?"

Daniel looked up from his food with a startled expression. "Huh?"

"How'd you beat it?"

Daniel stared with a dumbfounded, open-mouth expression. "Uh... I didn't. All of us-"

"No one was managing to do shit to that thing except you. I heard there was nothing left after you were done with it. Is that true?" the boy asked, an excited look in his eyes.

Daniel was about to answer and try to give credit to his team, but Dick spoke up first. "Yeah, it's true. He also burned out his suppressor. They had to make a new one for him."

"Are you serious?" the boy asked, his excitement growing.

"Yeah, seriously," Peter piped in. "And he wasn't even using all of his power."

The boy, eyes growing wide with awe, looked at Daniel. "Just say the word, man, and I'm there," the boy said before walking off to another table, immediately talking to everyone within earshot and giving gestures towards Daniel's table.

Daniel stared for a long while, watching the boy talk excitedly, before finally turning his confused expression to his group. "What was that about?" Although he posed his question to the entire group, he was directing it more towards Dick than anyone else.

"He can't be impressed?" Svetlana asked.

"You were very amazing, Daniel," Koriand'r added.

"No, not that. I mean what he said before he left."

"Everyone thinks you're going to break them out of here," Dick replied.

"Wait-what, why?!" Daniel asked in distress. "I-I didn't say that! Why would they think that?!"

"Because I told them that was the plan," Dick replied evenly.

Daniel stared at him, waiting for him to say that he was joking. When he didn't, he blinked rapidly, stunned as he stammered, "What the fuck, Dick?! I told you; I _can't_! You _saw_ what happened to me! I can't control it!"

"Yes, you can."

Daniel scoffed, hardly believing Dick's nonchalant ignorance. "_No. I. Can't._"

"Yes, you can. Look, I did see what happened to you. I saw what happened to you the first time you changed, too. And there was a big difference this time. You controlled it better. With Raven's help, you'll be in control of it in no time."

"But I didn't-"

"I don't care," Dick snapped, then leaned forward, pointing a finger at Daniel as he harshly whispered so that no one else besides their table could hear, "Listen to me, Daniel. Half of us are about to 'graduate', and I don't know about you, but I doubt that anything good is going to come out of that. We are _this_ close-" he created a small space between his pointer finger and thumb to illustrate "-to losing our chance to escape and right now you are our only option. They had to replace your suppressor, Daniel. They've _never_ done that. Ever. They've never _had_ to, until you came along. So I don't give a damn what your problems are. I care about getting everyone out of here before the Talent Scouts have a chance to do whatever it is that they're planning to do with us. Everyone's counting on _you_ now to save them, because if you can't, then no one can and we're fucked no matter what."

Daniel swallowed, any retort stolen away.

Victor looked between the two for a moment, and then turned his attention to Dick. "Dick, man, you know I trust you, but are you really sure telling everybody that we're planning an escape is such a good idea?"

"I'm not telling everyone. I've been planning this since I saw what he did to the first dome," he gestured to Daniel, "I've got several groups put together. They're all trustworthy and they're going to help us make sure that he's left alone. That's going to include the Talent Scouts leaving you alone, Daniel."

Daniel looked up at that. "Seriously?"

Dick nodded.

"How are you going to do that? I don't know if any of you have noticed, but the Director won't leave me alone. She wants to see me again tonight."

"Again?!" Garfield asked. "Dude, she's obsessed with you."

"I think it's worse than that," Daniel said.

"What do you mean?"

"Um..." Daniel ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Someone came to rescue me today."

The entire table became silent, shock plastered onto each of their faces. Even Raven looked stunned.

Wally was the first to speak. "... what?"

With their lunch time running short, Daniel explained his encounter to the table as quickly and quietly as possible, adding only details that we necessary so as to ensure that he was able to explain everything before lunch ended.

When he had finished, he was immediately met with a barrage of questions from everyone, all of whom were trying to make themselves heard over everyone else in their excitement.

"How'd it get in?"

"Why was it green?"

"How did it take over the Talent Scout?"

"How did the Talent Scout know that it was taken over?"

"Who sent it?"

"Did it get back out?"

"Did it say if it was coming back with help?"

Daniel backed away slightly, raising his hands at them. "Uh..."

"Come on, guys, one question at a time!" Victor said, trying to calm everyone down.

"What are you going to do about the Director?" Peter asked.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

Peter gestured above with a finger, swirling it. "There are cameras _everywhere_. She knows what happened."

Daniel's expression fell. "She does?"

Peter nodded.

"Oh... oh, shit..." Daniel said, panicked. "What am I going to do?!"

"Is there anything he _can_ do?" Conner asked.

Peter took a breath, making a face as he considered their options. "Not really," he said, letting out his breath and shaking his head. "She already knows, so lying to her isn't going to do any good. The problem is what she'll do now. She might kill Danny to try and stop the problem before it even happens, or she might put him on the highest level of IC, or she'll move her plans forward and give us less time to get out of here."

"So..." Garfield asked.

Peter shrugged. "So nothing. There's nothing that we can do."

The whole table got quiet as their hopes of escape and freedom got dashed. When the overhead speaker announced to the cafeteria that they were to report to Tasks, everyone looked to Daniel.

"Do you have to go see her now?" Victor asked.

Daniel nodded.

Victor frowned and gave Daniel a companionable pat on the shoulder, but he paused to give him an encouraging squeeze. "We'll see you later tonight, man."

Daniel smiled and nodded, although he had no certainty that he would. "Yeah, I'll... I'll see you tonight."

Garfield went over to him, biting the nails of his fingers anxiously. He leaned in close, whispering, "Listen... if you get the chance again... get out of here."

Daniel blinked at him, surprised at the seriousness with which Garfield said it. He was about to protest and say that he wouldn't leave them, but Garfield shook his head, expression grave. "I mean it," he said, quickly turning to ensure that Daniel had no chance to argue.

The group said goodbye to him and wished him luck before turning to head off to Tasks. Raven lingered for a moment, violent eyes falling on Daniel. "I'll see you tomorrow," she finally said, tone dry as usual, but Daniel grasped the effort she was trying to make, so he smiled confidently at her.

"Definitely."

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed the update. See you guys on Monday.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hello again everyone. I have some unfortunate news. The next chapter will officially be caught up to where I'm in the process of writing. I will write as often as I can, but I can no longer guarantee that there will be an update every Monday. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

Bill had escorted Daniel to the Director's office immediately preceding dinner and he was offered a seat in front of her desk. He declined, which he realized was childish and petty, but he was in a defiant mood and wanted to get across to her that she couldn't control him. So, despite how tired he was, he stood, trying to pretend that he wasn't swaying unsteadily.

The Director arrived fifteen minutes after he had been brought in, walking past him with long, elegant strides, head held high in a superior manner. She moved like she owned the room and everything was beneath her and Daniel couldn't stop the roll of his eyes as she passed behind him to circle around her desk and sit down in front of him.

She settled herself in before acknowledging him, fussing with things on her desk with a false sense of grace. Finally, after everything on her desk had been touched and organized to her liking, she laced her fingers together, resting her wrists on the desktop as she looked at him with her large black eyes. "5125. Good to see you have recovered well. Would you like to sit?" she asked, gesturing smoothly to the seat beside him.

"What do you want?"

She seemed genuinely surprised by his tone and Daniel noticed an immediate change in her demeanor. She sat up slightly, squaring her shoulders. He matched her posture, making it as clear as possible that he wasn't afraid of her.

"You really should sit down, child. I fear if you stand much longer, you are liable to faint," she said, eyes observing the way his muscles quivered ever so slightly and his body swayed on its axis.

"I don't faint that easy, but you probably know that by now, right?" he said, adjusting his right arm so that she could see the fresh scar on his right wrist.

Her eyes followed the movement, then flicked back to his face and smiled. "I have been told that there was something of an incident today while you were being escorted to the cafeteria."

He stared evenly at her, not allowing her to see any reaction from him.

"Would you like to tell me what happened, 5125?"

"Daniel."

Her brow twitched. "What was that?"

"Daniel. You know my name and you know _I_ know my name, so quit using that stupid number and call me by my name."

Her eyes narrowed, tapping one of her fingers against the other. Then she smiled. "I heard that you have not been sleeping." Once again she paused, gauging him for a reaction. Apparently she got one, because her confidence seemed to grow. "Although, I do not need someone to tell me; it is evident on your face. I understand that you have been through quite an ordeal since your arrival here."

His fingers clenched into fists.

Her smile widened before she continued in a casual tone. "Indeed, you have been treated... rather harshly. Today, in particular, has been a challenge for you. My science team tells me that you had an extreme reaction to the drugs you were given."

His jaw tightened.

"Still, they claim that your excellent performance in the Training Center today was due entirely to that. Given such compelling evidence, I cannot help but think that I should terminate your sessions with 1854 in favor of this new tactic..."

He swallowed hard, remembering the vivid visions that he had seen and the terror that had plagued him during the time he was under the drug's influence. Although he couldn't be entirely sure, he knew that, whatever had happened while the drugs had a hold of him, had risked letting _him_ loose.

He must have reacted again, because she tilted her head at him with false sympathy. "What happened today in the hall, 5125?" she asked again.

Daniel's brow pressed together as he considered her question. It was as if...

"Why don't you check your cameras?" he asked her.

Her eyes broke contact with him, just for a moment, but it was long enough and he could hardly believe his luck, which had taken a sharp U-turn for the better. He scoffed at her, one side of his mouth rising into a cocky smirk. "Nothing happened. The Warden escorting me just froze for some reason," he replied, giving her an animated shrug.

Her expression grew dangerous, but Daniel was so relieved that, however it had happened, she had not witnessed anything that had happened in the hall, that he could not have cared less if she was angry.

"Are you quite certain that is the answer you want to give me?" she asked, the threat evident behind her words and tone.

Daniel smirked at her. "That's what happened."

She stared at him, upper lip trembling once. She shifted slightly, opening up the holographic computer screen and flicking her finger across it a few times before typing something in. "Tomorrow you will go to the Assessment Center at your usual time for an hour and then go immediately from there to the Enrichment Center."

Daniel's smirk fell and his jaw tightened, trying to keep the confident look on his face, but his heart was sinking into his stomach. She was taking away his sessions with Raven.

"And since you are no longer sleeping, your schedule has been adjusted. You will wake up an hour earlier, you will eat an hour earlier, and you will remain awake two hours later, during which time you will remain at Task."

His fists tightened even more; to the point of shaking. He refrained from speaking, knowing that anything that came out of his mouth would have too much emotion accompanying it for it to do any damage he might intend.

She gave him a once-over with her eyes, apparently satisfied, relaxing her posture slightly. "You may leave."

He lingered for a moment, wanting to defy her, even if only for a second, but he knew he would eventually have to leave. After a moment or two, he turned, but only managed to take a few steps before she stopped him.

"Oh, and one more thing..."

He grit his teeth as he tried to keep his anger in check, turning around and glaring at her.

"I have also adjusted your sleeping arrangements. It is possible that your bunk-mates are distracting you in the night, so I have taken the liberty of moving you to a more private room," she said, then smiled widely at him. "Rest easy, 5125."

His mouth fell open slightly as he let out a heavy, quiet breath. He knew what this new arrangement entailed and it wouldn't just be that it would be more physically draining. He would be effectively isolated from everyone. He tried to fight off the hopeless feeling clutching at his heart, but the more her words sunk in, the tighter the grip became.

The Director gave him one last victorious look before turning her attention to the computer screen, busying herself and ignoring him entirely.

Daniel walked out of the room, only allowing the shuddering breath to escape when the door to the Director's office shut. He slumped immediately as mental exhaustion washed over him, threatening to topple him over.

Bill watched him silently, showing no recognition to Daniel's despair. "Come. You must get to Task. You are already ten minutes late."

Daniel remained slumped for a moment, before giving a tired, shaking nod. He stood up, taking a deep breath and trying to recover his drive. Yes, he had lost a battle with the Director, but she had lost one with him as well. She didn't know what had happened in the hall. She didn't know that someone had come looking to rescue Daniel. And, more importantly, she didn't know that that someone had _left_. Which meant that there was a chance, small as it was, that rescue would come.

* * *

The next week dragged on miserably slow. The night after his talk with the Director, Daniel had gone to Task, only to discover that the Director had "adjusted" that as well, transferring him to a different section of the ship. As bad luck would have it, his new work mates just happened to be not only a fully recovered Wendy, but also her entire group. None of them had bothered him, but he could always feel their eyes on him and was acutely aware of the glances they would give each other when they thought he wasn't looking.

As though that had not been bad enough, the Director had not been joking about any of her statements. He was required, that very night, to remain two hours later than everyone else, doing whatever small or large work that was left over. Once Wendy and her henchmen discovered this, they began to leave the hardest work for him, which sometimes caused him to have to remain awake up to three hours later.

When he would finally finish his Task at the end of the day, he was taken back to the new cell he had been given, which was in an entirely different cell block than his first had been. The new room wasn't all that small, but to Daniel it felt like a closet. Any notion of sleep was discarded as impossible, so for the five to six hours that he was allowed to rest, he merely stared at the ceiling, thoughts betraying him as he reflected on his bleak situation. When a Warden (he stopped seeing Bill after his talk with the Director) finally came for him, he followed it to the cafeteria in a daze. He didn't really eat much, either. He was too exhausted to eat and whatever he did manage to get down did not sit well with him. Four days into his routine he attempted to just skip the meal altogether and received a painful shock for being "disobedient."

After breakfast he was taken to the Assessment Center as per usual. This was both his favorite and least favorite part of the day. The only thing that made being forced into a paranoid, terrified state with drugs that actively _hurt_ when they moved through his bloodstream was simply the fact that he got to see a familiar face: Wachit. He didn't miss the irony in that seeing his torturer was the highlight of his day, but he didn't have the presence of mind to care.

Wachit grew more and more concerned as the days progressed. Daniel started seeing things even when he wasn't under the drug's influence, and although Wachit had, according to him, practically begged the Director to cease the sessions, she had refused. So Wachit had set out to help Daniel as much as he could; giving him sleeping pills, secretly reducing the dosage of the drugs he was being given, and anything else that he could manage discreetly. Of course, there was only so much that the Talent Scout could do. The pills were not working and he was not able to reduce the dosage every time, but Daniel didn't care about any of that. He just enjoyed the chance to talk to someone; so Wachit obliged him. Wachit talked to him even when he was drugged, giving him reassurances and telling him to be strong. If he was able to talk to Daniel without being noticed, he took the chance, and Daniel appreciated it more than the Talent Scout knew.

When at last the sessions would end, Daniel would be sent off to Enrichment, which was another bittersweet portion of his day. It was the shortest part of his day (or at least it felt like it) and by the end, he felt somewhat rested and the effects of the drugs wore off by that point. The bitter part was that he didn't get to really enjoy the _resting_ bit.

Immediately following Enrichment, he was forced to eat lunch (despite his lack of appetite) and then immediately sent off to the Training Center, which consisted of the same kind of training that he had gone through in his first weeks there. What had been easy then, however, was not so easy now. He was weak and too tired to respond quickly, so he struggled through each training session, doing worse and worse each day. By the end of it, he was hardly able to stand.

After dinner, he was sent off to Task and the cycle continued with seemingly no end.

But the worst; the absolute worst thing to happen to him since his arrival on the Talent Scout ship, was that the monster was starting to come out.

In the first two days of his seclusion, Daniel only seemed to notice two red eyes that hung in the air all by themselves, watching him from their suspended state, but as the days progressed, he started seeing them elsewhere. He noticed them in the shadows of the Talent Scouts around him, appearing at the head of the shadow being cast. And then they began to appear in the eyes of the Talent Scout's themselves, replacing the all-blacks of the alien's eyes with the blood-red that so viciously haunted his nightmares that he no longer dared close his eyes. It spoke to him, on some occasions; reminding him that _he_ was inevitable; that eventually, _he_ would consume him.

And there was nothing he could do.

* * *

Daniel was awoken as usual and escorted to the empty cafeteria to eat breakfast. Being alone in the enormous room was among the most disheartening portions of his days, but as it was, he hardly noticed anymore. He grabbed his breakfast and slumped into the nearest table, moving the grey mush around with his spoon as he waited to develop an appetite. Although there was nothing that compelled him to do so, he glanced up to look at the table across from his, eyes landing on the five figures occupying it. He stared for a long while at the back of their heads, silent and unresponsive, but his mind eventually caught up with his eyes.

"Hey," Daniel called in the direction that his Warden escort had stationed itself, not taking his eyes off of the five figures in front of him. When the Warden did not respond to him, he called again, eventually drawing the Warden to his table to see what the matter was.

"Is there anyone sitting over there?" Daniel asked the Warden, eyes never leaving the five figures across from him.

The Warden shook its head. "There is no one."

Daniel sighed. "That's what I thought," he said, finally looking away from the group of hallucinations and down at the plate of food in front of him. He frowned at the nauseous feeling that came over him. "Please don't make me eat this," Daniel begged tiredly, not caring how pathetic it sounded. "I won't be able to keep it down."

"You must eat."

_"It's vile."_

Daniel's head whipped up at the voice in his ear, but no one was there. The group across the room had even vanished. Daniel knew though that _he_ was somewhere around; watching and waiting; waiting for him to weaken.

"Eat," the Talent Scout commanded.

Daniel opened his mouth to argue, but lost the will to even try. It was a pointless battle that he wouldn't end up winning. All he would get from it was a punishment, and the last thing he needed was an electric shock to his system. With a subdued expression, he returned to his food again, struggling with each bite and spending several moments after each to resist the urge to vomit. He kept trying, knowing that if he didn't finish his meal on time he would be punished by the impatient Talent Scout watching him.

_"Eat all you want, boy. It will do you no good._"

Daniel flinched his head into his neck when he felt hot breath on his ear. A tremor ran down his spine and caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end.

"Leave me alone," he whispered.

_"Why? So you can continue your suffering in silence? I can free us._"

"You're not real," Daniel told the voice, his own voice shaking.

_"If I am not real, then neither are you._"

"I'm not you. I'm not, I'm not... you're not..." Daniel muttered helplessly, trying to control the shaking that had come over him. It did not get better, but instead worsened to the point that he could no longer hold his fork, which clattered to the table. "Just..." -he let out a shuddering exhale, eyes squeezed shut and lips trembling as he tried to remind himself that this conversation was all in his mind- "just leave me alone. I don't want your help."

_"You will._"

Eventually, he managed to get down the remainder of his breakfast and was promptly taken to continue his daily routine. When he was taken to the Assessment Center, he told Wachit about his hallucination, although he left out the fact that _he_ had talked to him.

"Did you recognize them?" Wachit asked as he set up the pod that Daniel had already been placed in.

Daniel nodded. "I think two of them were my friends from my dream. I know I recognized the other people, but I don't know who they were for sure."

Wachit nodded thoughtfully. "How clear were they?"

"They were clear, but their backs were facing me."

Wachit considered this for a moment, then, "The next time you see these hallucinations, I would encourage you to try and interact with them. Perhaps, if you are able to see their faces, it will help you to regain a portion, if not all, of your memories."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Daniel hesitated, fighting away the lump at his throat. "I'm... I'm afraid."

"Why should you be afraid?"

He licked his dry lips. "I... What if... they don't want to talk to me?" Daniel asked, trying to dissuade Wachit from pressing the question further. He didn't know how to tell Wachit the truth; that Daniel was afraid to talk to them because _he_ wanted him to.

"Why would they not want to talk to you?"

Daniel shrugged tiredly, using his shoulder to wipe away a tear that pricked his eye. "I don't know."

"It would seem that you do," Wachit observed.

Daniel swallowed, shutting his eyes wearily.

Wachit frowned, looked at the holographic screen that he had been occupying himself with, then got a determined expression as he closed the screen. He turned to the other scientists in the room, raising his hands to get their attention. "We will not be proceeding with the administration today," he informed them.

The other scientists looked at each other uncertainly.

"But..." one began hesitantly, "will the Director not be angry?"

"I cannot confidently administer any more drugs into this child's system without risking permanent damage to his psyche. The Director will have to accept my professional analysis," Wachit said firmly, then gestured at two Talent Scouts. "Get him out of the pod and prepare a table for him."

"What for?"

"He needs rest," Wachit replied, watching the Talent Scouts free Daniel from the pod while two others brought a table over, helping to ease Daniel onto it.

"I can't, Wachit," Daniel pleaded, trying to sit up, but the Talent Scout placed a gentle hand on his chest, pressing him back onto the table. Daniel was too weak to resist the force pushing him back, so laid down without hassle, but his expression remained uneasy.

Wachit turned his back, having another of the scientists ensure Daniel remained on the table while he retrieved a syringe. Daniel eyed it as he approached fearfully. "What is that?"

Wachit pressed the tip of the needle over one of Daniel's arms.

"Please, no..." Daniel begged as Wachit administered the syringe's contents into his vein.

"It is alright. It is only a sedative," Wachit assured him. "It will put you into a deep sleep for the next hour or so. It will help you rest."

Daniel shook his head, trying to protest, but his eyelids had already begun to feel heavy, falling over his eyes as he struggled to remain conscious. "No, no, no... I can't... _he'll_ get me..."

Wachit turned again, producing another needle and sending its contents into another of Daniel's veins. "Here. This will help with your nightmares."

Daniel felt warmth spread through his veins, easing his muscles and sending a wave of exhaustion throughout his body. The table suddenly felt like laying on a bed of feathers and Daniel sunk into it, body relaxing. He let his eyes close as the idea of sleep seemed, for once, to be inviting and possible. "Thank you," Daniel mumbled.

Wachit patted him shoulder. "Rest."

"She's going to be mad," Daniel murmured as he began drifting off.

"Do not worry about the Director. Sleep, Daniel."

"Don't let _him_ get me..."

"I will not."

* * *

**I will do my best to get the next chapter up on Monday and keep the updates after this as regular as I can. It will mostly depend on how much free time I have. See you guys next time. **


	14. Chapter 14

**Before I start, I wanted to answer some of the reviewers who had questions or comments since I'm too busy to reply to everyone individually. Rhyolite56 asked if there I had a system for the numbering of the students. I did try to do that at the beginning before I'd published the story, but I'm horrible at math and it was consuming so much of my time that I decided to just randomize it for simplicity's sake. Also I'm sorry I keep you waiting every Monday for an update. I will try to get them posted as quickly as I can so that you don't have to refresh it so often ;)**

**Lexosaurus I'm replying to you for the simple fact that your reviews always make me so happy and excited to write every day. If you liked Danny's troubles in the last chapter, then you're going to love Part 2. I'm so glad you've been enjoying it and thank you so much for the amazing compliments! They seriously make my day.**

**Anyway, thank all of you so much. Your comments have been amazing and I'm so glad to see people enjoying reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it!**

* * *

Daniel slept better on the uncomfortable medical table than he had in an entire week in an actual bed. It was something of a comfort to know that someone was watching over him as he slept, making sure that he was not disturbed, which Wachit did. He excused the other scientists and gave Daniel the hour that would have been spent enduring forced hallucinations to have a proper rest.

But eventually, his hour was up and he had to go about his day as usual. Despite Daniel's concerns for Wachit, the lead scientist left him with only reassurances and encouragement and even when Wachit was escorted away by a Warden, the Talent Scout seemed unconcerned.

Daniel spent his Training time feeling guilty, hardly able to focus on the task at hand. He anxiously worried over what the Director would do to Wachit once she had discovered that he had helped Daniel, wondering if he would ever see the Talent Scout again, or if the Director would appoint some other scientist to drug him each day.

The rest of the evening went by slower than usual as he worried himself once again into exhaustion. By the time he had gone to Task, he was simply too distracted and tired to notice the way Wendy and her goons had begun to circle him. It was not until he had moved along to a more secluded section of the engine room that they made their move against him. As Daniel was passing by some pipes to get to the back section, where he had been informed were some faulty wiring, a hand snaked out from behind a wall, grabbing him by the neck and yanking him out of the sight of anyone in the main section of the engine room. He was slammed against a wall, the hand at his throat cutting off any noise he might have made.

The lizard creature of Wendy's group curled its lips at him in a sneer. "Got you."

The mound creature and the boy with the evil grin all stood around the lizard creature, satisfied expressions on their faces as they observed Daniel's useless struggling. The student with the sheet over his body stood by the entrance to the smaller section of the engine room, looking out to make sure that no one would interfere.

Daniel let out a strangled noise as his face started to turn red with strain, hands gripping the clawed grip at his throat as he tried to pry the fingers off of his neck.

Wendy came up beside the lizard creature, regarding Daniel with a scowl. She looked mostly healed, although she had retained a few scarring burns from where Daniel's green bursts of power had touched her. "Did you think you could get away with trying to kill me, you little piece of shit?" she asked, closing the distance between them so that her face was inches from his. She dragged one of her clawed fingers heavily over his cheek, drawing blood. "You're going to pay."

Daniel glanced around, looking for the cameras that Peter had assured him were everywhere. Someone should have noticed. Wardens were always monitoring students wherever they went, so surely the Director-

His heart sank. She was angry with him still and although she might not let Wendy and her cronies kill him, she might allow them to hurt him.

He was pulled from his thoughts when she dug her claws into his side, eliciting a strangled gasp. "What's the matter, runt? You can dish it out but you can't take it?"

His vision started to get blotted by black spots and he felt unconsciousness creeping up on him.

Wendy must have noticed because she ordered the lizard creature to drop him. The creature obeyed, tossing him to the ground carelessly. Daniel fell in a heap, immediately going into a coughing fit as he gasped for air.

Wendy was in no mood to allow him any breaks, however, because she immediately delivered a kick to his abdomen, knocking him over onto his back and expelling the only recently acquired air from his burning lungs.

The dark-skinned boy beside her jumped in as well, kicking Daniel repeatedly in the ribs as he laughed with sadistic glee. "Ha! Look at the twerp squirm!" he exclaimed giddily.

When the boy paused in his kicking spree, Daniel tried to turn over, but Wendy stomped her foot down on his stomach and knelt over him, grabbing a fistful of his hair with her claws and turning his face to her. "Not so all-powerful now, are you? How does it feel? To be helpless."

She looked blurry and Daniel was having difficulty hearing her. He tried to respond, tried to think of something cutting to say, but his mind wouldn't cooperate and all that came out was a small, weak noise that quickly died away into a slow exhale.

She dug her foot deeper into his stomach and slammed his head down against the floor, making stars dance in his vision and his head explode with pain. Unconsciousness tried to snatch him away, but he fought it off. He didn't want to be completely at their mercy, not that he was being able to do anything at the moment. He quickly regretted his decision however when Wendy slapped a hand over his mouth and then raked her nails across his chest with the other. He screamed behind her palm, which only made her grin. She examined the blood on the tips of her nails and licked them sadistically, locking eyes with Daniel as she did and making him shudder and gag.

Smiling cruelly, she pulled away, gesturing at the mound creature. It bent down, picking Daniel up by his chest and slamming him against the wall, letting his feet dangling several feet off of the floor. He slumped tiredly, hardly able to hold up his own head, much less attempt to free himself from the monster's grip.

"Squeeze him," Wendy ordered the mound creature. "But don't kill him. Don't want to upset the Wardens."

"Yeah! Squish him!" the dark-skinned boy cheered. "Squeeze him like a lemon!"

The mound creature began to tighten its grip, crushing Daniel's chest and making him let out a sharp gasp of pain. His eyes squeezed shut as he tried to wriggle free, but the mound creature only squeezed harder, threatening to break the bones in his chest and flatten his organs.

And then, suddenly, the creature stopped seconds before fracturing the first of Daniel's bones. Gasping, Daniel opened his eyes to find that all five of his attackers had suddenly gotten the same far-away looks that Bill had a week ago.

All except the lizard creature, whose eyes had gone an even brighter shade of all-too familiar crimson.

Daniel's eyes widened in alarm, recognizing that blood-red immediately. He squirmed and wriggled for all he was worth, desperate to free himself, but he could barely breathe under the tight grip, much less move to get loose.

The lizard creature, the only one of the five students who had not inexplicably frozen, grinned at him. "My, my..." it said in a voice that was not its own, "What a predicament you've gotten yourself into."

"Leave me alone," Daniel wheezed, chest too tight to speak properly.

"Come, now... Is that really an appropriate way to greet your rescuer?" the voice asked, making the lizard creature step forward, its red eyes gazing at Daniel with a calm, smug look.

"I don't want it," Daniel rasped, straining to get air into his lungs and wincing at the pain speaking was causing his chest. "I don't want to be you. Just leave me alone!"

"Oh, my dear boy, I think you misunderstand my intentions," the voice said and suddenly the mound creature's hold on Daniel's chest loosened enough to allow the boy to take in a much needed breath.

Daniel sucked in air greedily, almost choking himself in his haste. When his lungs were at last full again, he hung his head, and asked through shaking breaths, "What do you want from me?"

"For the moment, I want you to free yourself," the lizard creature said.

Daniel shook his head with frustration. "I can't..."

"You can," the voice informed him.

"No, I _can't!_" Daniel wailed exasperatedly, voice cracking in despair. "Please, just leave me alone! I don't want to be you. Please... I don't want it. I don't-"

The mound creature's grip tightened again, forcing a pained gurgle to escape his throat. It loosened its grip again a moment later.

The lizard creature looked at him patiently, expression stern. "You can," it said. "Access your powers."

Daniel shook his head back and forth rapidly. "Please... Please, I can't. The suppressor... I can't."

The lizard creature turned its right wrist upward and then reached inside, without ever breaking the skin, to retrieve the metal suppressor that had been implanted there. "This?"

Daniel stared, mouth hung open slightly in amazement. "How... how did you..."

The lizard creature returned it to its wrist with ease. "Your powers cannot be contained by some simple gadget. It is all in your mind. Now do what I told you and access your powers."

Daniel hesitated, gazing at the red-eyed lizard creature doubtfully. "Why?"

The lizard creature tilted its head at him. "Why what?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because, dear boy, you are useless to me here," the lizard creature replied, straightening its shoulders. "Now do what I said."

Daniel was trembling with fear and uncertainty, but he knew he could not resist the monster anymore. If he resisted, he would eventually run out of the strength to fight at all, and the monster would take him completely, but if he didn't, then he had a chance (a slim one, but still a chance) to not let the monster overcome him.

This was his last chance.

Seeing the resignation on Daniel's face, the lizard creature grinned at him. "That'a boy," it said, and then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the reds of the lizard creatures eyes faded into yellow and the far-off looks in the faces of the other students dissipated.

"Crush him!" the dark-skinned boy continued to cheer, completely oblivious to the time he had spent frozen. None of the others seemed to have noticed, either.

The mound monster continued to constrict its hand around Daniel, eliciting more pained groans, but Daniel ignored his predicament. He had shut his eyes, trying desperately to reach into his core. He brushed against the power that laid dormant inside of him, struggling to release it.

He let out a strangled scream as one of his rib bones broke, but still he focused on his core and the power there that eluded him.

He pinched his eyes open through the haze of pain, looking past the large dirt creature in front of him as something drew his attention to the corner of the room.

A girl stood quietly; small, slender hand outstretched, as though reaching for him.

He stared at her, and she stared back.

He remembered her.

The power surged out of his center in a bursting wave, two white rings spreading from his abdomen over his head and toes, sending strength to every exhausted muscle and aching bone. As the top ring passed over his head, his eyes flashed green.

With little effort and barely aware that he was doing it at all, Daniel fell through the mound creatures tight grasp like smoke, dropping to the floor heavily. A small, metallic clatter followed and Daniel's eyes caught sight of an electronic chip clinking to the floor beside him.

The mound creature blinked once, then slowly pulled its hand to its face to give it a bemused stare.

Although the cronies looked completely bewildered, Wendy had a look of terror spread over her face and, in a panic, began shouting at her group. "Kill him! Kill him! Squash him!"

The mound creature, although responding to the situation slowly, finally registered what Wendy was telling it, and it clenched its hand into a fist and sent it forward to smash Daniel into the floor.

Daniel's hand shot out, stopping the mound creature's fist midair, strength pouring into every limb and every muscle, renewing him with an unnatural energy.

Suddenly three new students rushed into the hidden area, looking as though they were ready to pick a fight, but stopped, frozen, when their eyes fell on Daniel, who was holding firmly to the mound creature's fist, despite the latter's attempts to free itself.

Wendy, eyes wide as she stared at Daniel and the scene unfolding before her, turned and fled, her terror blinding her to anything but escape. Her henchman watched her, disoriented and frightened by the sudden turn of events and followed after her.

The mound creature turned to flee as well, and Daniel let it when his head suddenly seemed to explode in pain. He buried his head into his hands, squeezing his eyes shut as images flashed through his vision. The girl who had been standing in the corner moments ago was gone, but his mind forced her to the forefront of his consciousness. Her ginger red hair and vibrant blue eyes kept dancing in his vision and he realized that he had seen the back of her head earlier that morning. She had been sitting at the table across from him at breakfast. Now he knew her name.

Jazz.

He remembered her name, but there was so much more behind that name; behind her face and her eyes, that was still eluding him. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember and at the same time trying to forget. Because he couldn't risk remembering; because _he_ wanted him to.

Then suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder as someone knelt beside him, trying to get his attention.

"Daniel?"

Daniel looked up at one of the boys who had rushed in, trying to banish the visions of the red-headed girl so that he could see the boy.

"It's okay, Daniel," the large teen said, careful not to put too much pressure on Daniel's shoulder, as though concerned to startle him. "I'm not a threat... It's okay... You remember me, don't you? From last week? I told you that I'd follow you. Do you remember that, Daniel?"

Daniel tried to recall the boy, but winced when all that his brain would give him was wave after wave of visions of the red-headed girl. Eventually, he shook his head.

The boy laughed. "It's okay. I didn't think you would. You've had a rough week."

"Kare no nani ga mondai ni natte, Scott-san?" the girl (who, upon further inspection Daniel realized was Noriko) asked the other boy, who was dark-haired and slim with a crooked jaw. She glanced down at the floor, picked up the small metal object that had fallen with Daniel, and held it up to scrutinize it.

"Shiranai," the boy answered her, glancing back, then did a double take to get a good look at what she was holding. "Nanisore?"

"Kore wa, yuka no ue ni ita," she answered, handing it to him.

The boy took it between his fingers and looked it over. "Sore wa, kare no chikara sogai-zaidesu," the boy said, turning to Daniel. "How did you do this?"

Daniel looked at the metal object, realizing quickly that it was the suppressor that had moments ago been implanted firmly in his skin. He shrugged. "I don't know... I just did it."

"Can you do it to us?" the larger boy asked.

Daniel nodded, holding out his hand. The large teen gave him his wrist willingly, watching with fascination as Daniel made the suppressor in the boy's arm fall to the floor like he had dropped it through water. Once he had finished, the boy looked at his wrist in awe, almost bursting into laughter. "Holy fuck... can you do it to them?"

Daniel did and Noriko too stared wide-eyed as her suppressor fell harmlessly out of her wrist.

"Sore wa odorokubeki kotoda!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"Students! Place your hands above your heads!"

The four students whirled as four Talent Scout Wardens marched up to them. One of the Wardens was pressing a button on the holographic computer band on its wrist, but looked puzzled when nothing happened.

The four suppressors that were now on the floor all buzzed and sparkled.

Daniel's brow narrowed and he raised a hand, a green bolt appeared in between his fingers. He took a moment, letting it build, before unleashing it on the approaching Talent Scouts, knocking all four of them off of their feet and sending them flying all the way back across the room.

The slim boy turned urgently to Noriko. "Noriko-san, Richard-san o sagashi ni iku to, soreha jikanda to kare ni iu," the boy said to the girl, who nodded with a determined expression as she turned and ran off.

Once she had disappeared, the large boy turned to Daniel. "Daniel, we've got to go now. Right now. Can you get up?"

Daniel nodded, letting the boy help him to his feet.

"There ya go. Easy does it," the slim boy said, watching Daniel's progress carefully while also keeping tabs on the slowly recovering Wardens across the room. "I'm Scott, by the way."

"And I'm Malcolm," the larger teen said.

Daniel nodded and then gasped suddenly when a vision of Jazz in a full-body, sleek metal suit suddenly appeared in his mind.

"You okay?" Malcolm asked.

"I'm fine. Where are we going?"

"We need to get to Dick and the others and-" Malcolm began, but stopped and looked up as six new Wardens rushed into the room, this time armed with guns. Scott's eyes immediately flashed red and he bared his teeth, two of the front now sharpened into the fangs as he let out an animalistic snarl.

Malcolm guided Daniel over to the wall and then pulled back his shoulders, making his already broad form look even bigger and more intimidating.

The four other Wardens, who had been knocked off of their feet before, now stood and joined the six new ones. Daniel raised his hands again in front of him, building up a large green ball and, once it was well over the size of a bowling ball, released it at them. For the Wardens in the center, there was nowhere for them to run and the impact of the green orb sent their bodies flying in a brilliant flash of light, but all four managed to duck out of the way and continue racing up towards them. They began to fire at the two teens with laser guns, which would have hit them, as the aims of each of the Wardens was precise, but Daniel grabbed Maclolm's arm and the shots flew right through them harmlessly.

Once the barrage of shots had ended and the Wardens came close, Scott's bones began to shift and in the blink of an eye had turned into an enormous, ratty-furred, black-brown wolf, standing on its muscular back legs like a human. Scott rushed at the first Warden that neared him, digging in his claws and sinking his teeth into thick flesh as he ripped and tore in a violent rush of animalistic rage.

Malcolm followed, taking on the first Warden he spotted with heavy hits. He was surprisingly light on his feet, weaving around the Warden and dodging each attack with ease.

Daniel flew at the other two, phasing through the shots they fired at him and then becoming solid again just as his fists collided with the two Wardens faces on either side of him, driving them both into the ground.

He looked up, seeing Jazz at the other end of the room; staring at him.

"Jazz?" he asked quietly.

She didn't respond, but turned and started walking away down the hall.

"Jazz?" he called after her and as she began disappearing down the hall, he started following after her, calling her name with more urgency as he did so.

Malcolm turned, looking around in confusion as Daniel began wandering off down the halls. "Daniel? Where are you going? Daniel!"

Daniel didn't hear him. He couldn't focus on anything but Jazz, running and rounding the corner to chase after her.

_The sound of hissing rang in his ears as he pushed his spent body forward; desperation in every step._

He looked around and found her at the other end of the hall, staring at him again. He stopped, staring back, slowly realizing that something was wrong. He just couldn't figure out what. "… Jazz?"

She looked away from him and walked down the hall.

He chased after her again, running with a sense of urgency as he began calling her name again, more desperately. He didn't hear Malcolm and Scott chasing after him and only acknowledged the Wardens coming to stop him enough to blast them out of his path. He chased her down two more halls, always with her just out of reach, but by the third hall, he stopped in confusion.

Jazz was gone. In her place was a black-skinned boy with glasses and a red cap on backwards.

Daniel's throat constricted at the sight of him, flashes of fire momentarily blinding his vision. More hesitantly now, he started stumbling towards him. "Tucker…"

Tucker, too, ignored him and walked down the hall.

"Tucker, please," Daniel called out, blasting another pair of Wardens trying to stop him out of his path.

_He clenched the thermos in his fists as he fought off exhaustion._

Memories flashed in his vision, making him feel like something inside his head was pressing against his skull. His vision swam and all that was clear was Tucker and the memories flooding his mind. Amity Park. He remembered where he lived. He remembered Tucker was his best friend. What was he doing there? What had Jazz been doing there? It didn't matter. He just needed to get to Jazz and Tucker.

Another hall, but twelve Wardens stood in his path. Twelve Wardens with blood-red eyes. At the sight of their eyes, Daniel felt a rage boil in his stomach. Power coursed through his limbs as he approached, phasing through the blasts they fired at him, then caught a glimpse of someone behind them. It was his father. His father was behind those creatures.

The rage and urgency grew and he swiped his hand at the Wardens, releasing a wave of green energy at the line of Wardens blocking him, keeping him from his father. "Dad! _Dad!_" He started running again, punching down a Warden that tried to get up to stop him as he passed.

Alarms were blaring, but he hardly noticed. He turned down another hall, but his father was gone. In his place, his mother stood, beckoning for him to follow.

_He ran, his legs burning, body aching from the battle, but he couldn't stop. He had to keep going. He had to make it in time. _

"Mom, wait! Please! Stop!" he yelled at her, but she didn't listen.

"Daniel, stop!" Malcolm called after him, reaching out to grab him. His fingers brushed Daniel's shirt, but just missed as Daniel began running off again. "Stop! We have to go, Daniel!"

"Daniel, wait!" Scott called as well.

_He reached for his core, but he had nothing left. He couldn't transform._

He skidded down the hall, almost falling over, but caught himself with a hand on the floor. He raced down the hall, watching his mother disappear behind a door.

"Daniel, stop!" Malcolm shouted after him again, grabbing Daniel's shoulder.

Daniel shrugged him off roughly, pushing him away with his other hand. "Get off! She's here! I have to get to her!"

"Who's here?" Scott asked as he caught up to them, looking around anxiously. He then became alert when he noticed more Wardens coming down the hall, weapons raised. "Daniel, we've gotta go. Right now."

Daniel didn't even bother looking at the Wardens, but simply raised his hand and fired off an enormous green blast down the hall, the power of it enough to knock both Malcolm and Scott off of their feet. Without a word, Daniel started towards the door he had seen his mother go through, phasing through it with ease.

_He tripped. _

The room was huge and circular, with control panels lining the walls and screens monitoring all of the student sections of the facility. On the screens, fights had broken out in different sections of the facility, both between students and students and Wardens. The Wardens were quickly getting things under control, however, although Noriko, at one of the top screens, was still managing to elude them.

Daniel didn't see any of this. His focus was on the black-haired girl standing in the middle of the room, her violet eyes boring into him.

He stopped at the door, frozen in place at the sight of her.

_He tripped. His family stared at him, their eyes both mourning and forgiving, and then they were gone in a blast of red fire and smoke, their last screams echoing painfully in his eardrums until they abruptly ended. _

Sam gave him a small smile.

His legs almost gave out and he stumbled backwards into the door, breathing heavily from the rush of memories. "No… god, no…" he muttered, limbs shaking and head reeling from the dizziness that suddenly came over him. He looked up at her again. She had not moved. She just stared at him.

He pushed himself off the door, slowly walking towards her. "Sam…" he reached out tentatively, needing to touch her; to see if she was real. He walked right up to her, but all she did was give him another sad smile.

He reached out, fingers outstretched to touch her shoulder, but his hand sunk through. His heart stopped and a heavy tremble took over his body as his eyes fell.

_They were gone. He'd failed them. _

_The fire blazed and danced in his vision as he knelt in front of the smoldering remains of the burning building. Smoke burned his eyes, but he couldn't find the strength to move. He just stared; dead inside. He had killed them… he'd killed them…_

_When the spaceship appeared overhead and shone a light down on top of him, he didn't do anything. He didn't stop them when they brought him limply aboard. It didn't matter, anyway. His family was gone because of him; because of the monster he had become._

* * *

**If you aren't aware, that language Noriko is speaking is Japanese. Now I'm pretty sure Noriko in the comics could speak English, but I used to live in Japan and when I found that Noriko was Japanese I just couldn't resist.**

**Next chapter gets even more intense and may possibly be the end of Part 1. I will try my best to get it up by Monday as usual. See you then.**


	15. Chapter 15

**This was an extremely difficult chapter to write. I actually had to rewrite it at one point because it started going in a weird direction that I had never intended for it to go, which is part of the reason it took almost two weeks to actually post. **

**There will be some important notes at the end of this chapter, but for now, enjoy the update.**

* * *

Danny's knees gave out and he fell forward, barely catching himself on his knees, exhaustion and despair weighing down almost unbearably on his limbs and mind. He clenched his fists as he stared at the image of Sam in front of him, watching her start to burn away. The fire curled up her form, stealing her away. She gave him one last smile before she vanished in a wisp of smoke.

He stared down at the floor, lips trembling, breathing heavily.

And then _he _laughed.

Danny's eyes slowly rose, landing on his future self, who was standing in front of him with an evil, fanged grin.

Danny's blood turned cold, his jaw tightened and his muscles tensed. He went to get up and hit him, but his limbs were like noodles and all he did was stumble forward.

"Daniel."

He froze again, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head vigorously as he tried to get his brain to function. Swallowing, he slowly raised his gaze again. His future self melted away, but a figure remained in his place. Danny blinked several times, confused at the new sight in front of him and doubting whether or not it was real.

"Vlad?"

Vlad Plasmius stared down at him contemplatively, finger on his chin and arms partially folded as he squinted his red eyes down at the boy. "Hm… you seem a bit more worse for wear than I was anticipating. Ah, well. I suppose I'll just have to adjust."

Danny licked his dry lips, trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. "You… you sent the vulture… last week."

"Obviously," Vlad replied with a curtly dismissive tone, the question too ridiculous to even give his full attention. He stared at Danny for several moments longer, allowing Danny a moment to glance around the room, which was spattered with the unmoving bodies of dozens of Talent Scouts and Wardens. "Change of plans. We're leaving."

Danny looked up at him. "What?"

"Well I had intended to let you free your friends and get out a bit of that pesky hero complex you have, but you're clearly not up to the task," Vlad replied, reaching forward.

Danny's face curled into a snarl and he jerked away. "Don't touch me!" he snapped, pushing himself back until he was sitting and scooting away.

A moment of alarm passed over Vlad's face and he pulled back, the expression changing quickly into one of surprise and confusion.

Danny glared at him, blood pumping suddenly and giving him a boost of anger-fueled adrenaline. He shakily stood, holding a hand out warningly when he thought Vlad went to help him up. When he had managed to stand up fully, he looked around the room at the screens again, noticing now that all of the students had been confined to their cells. Noriko, at one of the center screens now, was surrounded and it wouldn't be long before she was recaptured from the look of it. Malcolm and Scott were trapped just outside of the room Danny and Vlad were in, apparently guarding the door from the Wardens that were trying desperately to recover their control room. For the moment, the two of them were holding their own, but Danny didn't think they would be able to keep it up for very long.

Danny stumbled over to the control panels, quickly leaning it once he had reached it to keep from falling forward. He felt sick, but he shook it off, running on the anger burning in his veins.

"Can I control… the um… the thing from here?" Danny asked, gesturing with his hand to try to get bring the word to his mind.

Vlad watched him as though all of Danny's efforts were ludicrous, but he seemed to be more or less willing to go along with it. "I don't know what you're saying, Daniel."

Danny growled a little at the name. "Danny... Danny! For the last fucking time my name is Danny! That's what it's always fucking been so say it right!" Danny shouted furiously, twisting his body to glare at Vlad.

Vlad's brow rose in surprise.

Danny swallowed, turning back to the control panel. "Just… just help me figure out if this is where they can control the… gah-! Damn it I can't think of the fucking word! The thing that's keeping everyone… uh… weak…"

"The suppressors?"

"Yes! That. Do they control it from here?" Danny asked—assuming that Vlad, as was his way, had done extensive surveillance of the ship's inner workings before actually setting foot there—looking at the buttons that were all blurring together.

"For the most part," Vlad replied, "although I have observed a few Wardens access suppressors manually through the devices on their wrists, but doing so takes some time."

"And the doors? Can I open the cell doors from here?" Danny asked, looking at the endless rows of identical buttons lining the control panel, all of them blurring in his vision.

"You can. There are manual overrides in each cellblock, but they require a passcode only the higher ranking Wardens have."

"Show me," Danny said.

"_How low you've fallen. Asking for _his_ help."_

Danny cringed as Dan whispered the words directly into his ear and a hand shot up to cover his ear, but he stopped himself midway.

Vlad had not missed the gesture and frowned deeply. "Are you sure you're up to the task, Little Badger?"

Danny let out a long breath, trying not to snap at the nickname he had never asked for or approved of, instead focusing on the task at hand. He repeated his demand, more firmly this time, "Show me."

Vlad paused briefly, and Danny braced himself for a fight. He could tell Vlad wanted to just leave, and he had never exactly been approving of Danny's desire to help people, but to his own surprise, Vlad relented, coming up next to Danny and pointing to the buttons he needed. "This controls the doors. This panel controls the suppressors. You can shut them all off simultaneously with a passcode."

"Where can I get a passcode?"

"Well, it just so happens that _I_ have one."

Danny groaned inwardly, sending the elder halfa a glare from beneath his brow. "What do you want?"

Vlad smiled at him, and it suddenly struck Danny why Vlad had been more willing to help him save the other students. He had wanted something. Really, Danny should have expected it, but it somehow never ceased to catch him off guard. "Your silence."

Danny furrowed his brow at him. "What?"

"Our human identities remain _secret_. Regardless of the circumstances. Do you understand?"

Danny blinked confusedly at him. It seemed like such a strange request, particularly given the circumstances, but it finally hit him why he was making it. His parents were dead. His family was dead. There was no longer any reason to keep Vlad identity a secret, now that Danny didn't have anyone to keep it from, either. Vlad needed something new to ensure that they would both protect each other's secret.

Danny felt a pang of rage hit him so suddenly that he had to physically resist the urge to punch Vlad in the face, clenching his fists against the console and squeezing his eyes shut to control himself. It shouldn't have hurt him so badly that Vlad was callous to the all-too-recent loss of his family, but dealing with Vlad seemed to be ten times harder now than it ever had been before and he was rapidly running out of patience.

"_I could take care of him for you. It would be my absolute pleasure."_

"Fine. Your secret's safe with me. Now give me the fucking passcode," Danny demanded.

Vlad looked like he was about to reprimand him, but stopped, instead turning to the panel and entering the passcode. He then proceeded to shut off the suppressors. "There you are, Daniel. Now, you'll need to ensure no one enters this room, or they will be able to override it and turn the suppressors back on."

Danny nodded, pressing the button that opened the cellblock doors. He looked up at the screens, watching the doors open. Most of the students looked confused and cautious, but others jumped out immediately, launching themselves at the nearest Wardens. Quickly, the rest followed, rushing out of their cells to attack the guards. Some, however, looked appalled at what was happening, and began trying to aid the Wardens, turning on their fellow students. Danny guessed that these were the Devouts. But the students attacking other students started to _grow_. Some that had just moments ago been fighting Wardens suddenly got glazed over looks and, for no apparent reason, started attacking other students.

"What the hell?" Danny muttered to himself, watching as more and more students got the glazed over look, followed immediately by them turning on each other. Danny looked at the monitor that showed Malcolm and Scott. Scott looked fine, but Malcolm was holding his head as though in pain. Then, just as suddenly as the other students, he suddenly rounded on Scott, throwing a punch that Scott was just barely able to block.

"Shit," Danny murmured, quickly running back over to the door, phasing his hand through until he felt that he had grabbed someone. He yanked them through, tossing them to the floor behind him. Malcolm fell on his back, but quickly rolled with his fall, landing on all fours and getting back up, rushing Danny.

Before Danny could engage him, Vlad had grabbed the boy around the neck and sent several waves of electrical currents through his body, dropping him once he had gone unconscious with an indifferent expression.

"_Good old Vlad. You can always count on him to hurt your friends and allies."_

"What the hell, Vlad?!" Danny barked angrily.

"My way is quicker," Vlad replied emotionlessly.

Danny took another breath to suppress his rage, running a hand through his hair. "How far are we from earth?"

"We're orbiting it. Just outside of the planet's gravitational pull."

Danny nodded, reaching through the door and pulling an unsuspecting and rather confused-looking Scott through the door. "You two stay here."

"Whoa-what? What just happened?" Scott asked in alarm, then looked at Vlad, eyes widening. "Who are you?"

"Do you really think you're in any kind of position to be giving demands, Little Badger?" Vlad asked him with that silky tone that he tended only to use when he was trying to hide the condescension in his voice.

"_You_ came for _me_, remember. You want me? Then stay here and make sure that this room is secure. Otherwise, you can forget about whatever it is that you want from me."

Vlad smiled, "Very well, my boy. But do try to hurry. We are on a bit of a tight schedule."

"Is this it?" Scott asked. "Are we really going to get out of here?"

Danny gave the other boy a serious look, "We're going home. Today. I promise."

"_Promises, promises. So confident… so easily broken."_

Danny ignored the statement, turning to the door and phasing through it. He was immediately greeted by a host of Wardens, all of whom had connected several explosives to the door. Danny quickly yanked them off and tossed them down either side of the hall, causing the several dozen or so Wardens to scatter to avoid being blown up. Danny then released green blasts down the halls, letting the blasts widen until they were engulfing both sides of the hall in a brilliant neon green light, burning and knocking away the Wardens still in its path. Having sufficiently cleared the hallway, he started walking towards the east side of the ship, where he knew the Director and, undoubtedly, the main control room would be located.

"_They did this to you. Make them suffer for it."_

Danny was confronted several times by Wardens, but none of them stood a chance against him. His anger seemed to only grow with each alien that came to stop him, and he unleashed it on them. The power surged through his body at an ever increasing level, even making his limbs tremble slightly.

"_They took the memories of your family. The only thing you had left of them. They're monsters, Danny."_

Down hall after hall, Danny eventually ended up face to face with hundreds of drones, which were apparently a last-resort security measure. These were outfitted with electrically charged, metallic arms like tentacles. Each drone had nearly twenty arms, and with as many drones as were swarming the hall like locusts, it was a perpetual electrical storm. A group of them charged him, the air around them abuzz with the electrical energy they were unleashing. An electrically charged tentacle lashed out from one of the drones, reaching towards Danny. He grabbed it, gritting his teeth as he felt the electricity try to race up his arm, but he channeled his powers down into the current, changing it from violent blue and white to green as he sent the current back up the tentacle arm and into the body of the drone. It sizzled and buzzed until a small pop sent the drone to the ground. Confident in himself, he grabbed as many tentacles as he could get his hands on, doing the same to them. Several groups at a time, the drones began to fall, being taken out by their own hijacked electrical currents.

"_Is that the best you've got, Danny-boy? Come on! Show them what they did to you! Show me what you're made of!"_ Dan coaxed tauntingly.

"Shut up!" Danny shouted, blasting at the wall where Dan had appeared. Of course, Dan was not actually there, and all he ended up doing was creating a crater in the wall.

Dan laughed mockingly. _"That's a step in the right direction, but let's see some of that power directed at these Talent Scout fucks, hm? Come on, Danny! Let it out!"_

Danny did. He had finally entered the restricted area, where only higher leveled Talent Scouts were permitted, and the officials there looked shocked to see him. He raced down the halls, throwing punches, kicks, and blasts at everyone he saw, his mind focused on getting to his destination. He checked each door he passed, mostly coming across rooms that did not appear, at least to him, to have any particular purpose.

Finally coming to the end of a particularly long hall after having gone up a level by phasing through the ceiling, he saw an unusually secured door. It was thicker than the others and there was a security pad off to the side that apparently required a code and physical scan. To his surprise, there were no guards. In fact, there was no one in this particular hall at all. Danny walked up to it and punched straight through it before phasing through the door.

It was the exact room he was looking for. It was massive, control panels lining the curved wall on the opposite side of the room, the majority of which was an enormous window looking out onto the dark side of a planet…

Earth.

Home.

In small sections of the enormous window were screens that displayed security footage of the chaos going on throughout the rest of the ship, where students fought one another, Wardens, and attempted to take control of the ship. Danny couldn't tell who was winning any of the battles, but it didn't matter.

The room was empty save for the Director, who sat at the helm of the ship, looking up at the screens.

"You were all chosen," she said, apparently aware of his presence despite the fact that her back was to him.

Danny didn't say anything, but began walking towards her, glancing around the room warily. He suspected he could be walking into some kind of trap, so he was cautious as he approached her.

"You were selected for a higher purpose. You were to receive salvation," the Director said, then turned the chair. Danny stopped, watching her guardedly. "You, Daniel Fenton, were special. You are more special than the rest. _You_ were chosen for a special task. Why do you resist?"

Danny's lip trembled with anger, fists clenching as he began approaching her again. "You took my family from me," he muttered, anger seeping out of his voice, making it difficult to hear him with how quiet he was speaking.

"Your family was already gone. You had nothing when we found you," the Director said to him softly, almost gently, genuinely trying to reason to him. "We took nothing from you. We _gave _you a new purpose. A higher purpose."

"_She gave you _me_."_

"I needed them and you _stole_ them from me," Danny ground out. "You kidnapped me. You took my family. You _tortured_ me. You-" the next part caught in his throat as a wave of rage came over him, and he took a step closer, pointing an accusatory finger at her, "-you let _him_ out! What fucked up _higher purpose_ could possibly excuse that?!"

"The Savior picked you. He wants only to help you reach your potential."

Dan chuckled, giving Danny a knowing look.

"_See? Even _she_ sees what you and I could accomplish!"_

"M-my potential?" Danny asked, scoffing, fury burning through his veins.

"_Look at what she did to you."_

"My potential?!"

"_Do you feel it?"_

He began to take large strides towards her, and her expression quickly shifted from soft to frightened as, suddenly, he was right in front of her, grabbing her by the front of her shirt.

"_Let me in."_

The Director had nothing but terror in her eyes, but it didn't register in Danny's mind. His vision swam, his entire body _trembling_ with absolute loathing for the creature who had tried to take away what little he had left of his family and friends.

"_Make her suffer!" _

"_Here_," Danny said, eyes growing cold as the rage finally boiled over.

"_Show her."_

"Let me show you my _potential_," he seethed at her.

He took a deep breath, letting the power build in his chest like an inner whirlwind before letting it out in one breath, the ghost wail bursting from his lungs with such power that the Director was ripped out of his grip. She was pushed across the room, along with every chair, desk, and computer in the room, into the window at the end. The wail began tearing away at the floor, ripping it apart and flattening it into paper-thin pieces until there was hardly anything left; it crushed and tore at the metal consoles, compacting them and tearing away layer after layer until no evidence of their existence remained. Before Danny even realized what he had done, the wail connected with the window, instantly shattering it. The entire ship jolted, the crater the wail had created creating a perfect cone that made everything getting sucked out into space that much easily flung into the darkness, and the pull of the planet below eventually drawing what little remained of the room towards its atmosphere.

Danny stopped the wail when his air was suddenly stolen away and the shattered window attempted to suck him out into space with everything else, and it certainly would have had a hand not grabbed him from the floor, yanking him down and through into the hall below the main control room. Danny hit the ground on his back with a grunt, looking around with bewilderment until his eyes landed on Vlad, who was looking at him with shock and, to Danny's complete surprise, a hint of fear.

"What have you done, Daniel?! Are you _trying_ to kill yourself and everyone on this ship?" Vlad scolded him, sounding both furious and shocked at what Danny had done. "You do realize you just obliterated the only way to pilot this ship, don't you? How do you plan on getting this vessel back to earth now, hm?"

"Get off me," Danny snapped, pushing Vlad's hand off of his ankle and sitting up.

Vlad stared down at him with a deeply unsettled expression, brow knitted together and mouth drawn into a frown. "That was a new trick."

"To you," Danny muttered, holding his head when another overpowering wave of dizziness threatened to force him into his human form. He looked around and noticed a slight tilt to the room. Frowning, he looked at Vlad. "Are we-"

"Crashing? Why, yes, Daniel, we are. You see, that's what happens when you not only take out the pilot of a vessel, but you also take out the entire navigation room."

As though the acknowledgement of their predicament was a wake-up call to their eminent doom, the entire ship jolted so violently that both of the halfa's were lifted off of the floor for a moment and then jarringly thrown against the wall behind them, the entire ship picking up speed. Danny knew what was happening; they had entered the atmosphere. They were nothing more than a giant metal meteor hurtling towards an unsuspecting earth, and they would only pick up speed. The crash would most certainly kill everyone on board, and the force of the impact of the enormous ship was undoubtedly going to cause near-catastrophic damage to the planet and its inhabitants, regardless of where it landed. Which meant it _had _to be stopped.

The ship shook violently as it raced down to earth, pieces of the hull being burned and shredded off as heat and friction grew, until it finally broke through the outer atmosphere, giving another heavy jolt and then proceeding to fall out of control from the sky.

Danny weakly picked himself up, having difficulty standing with the pressure and the fatigue that had begun to sink into his bones and muscles, but he managed, making his way down the hall. Vlad, having already picked himself up and doing much better in navigating the out of control ship, followed him.

Danny unsteadily made his way, but was nearly knocked off of his feet again when another jolt, likely from a large piece of the hull being ripped off, shook the vessel. Vlad was immediately at his side, however, grabbing one of Danny's arms and putting it around his own shoulder to help him walk.

"Where?" Vlad asked.

"I need to get to the outer wall," Danny said tiredly.

Vlad nodded, half-carrying Danny down the hall. As they went along, several drones and Wardens that were still wandering the halls attempted to stop them. The Wardens were just as out of sorts as Danny and Vlad were, and Vlad was able to blast them away (before Danny even had a chance to try) with ease. The drones were equally unimposing to the elder halfa, blasting them or crushing them with his freehand as though they were made of Play-doh before moving along unconcernedly.

When they reached the outer wall, Vlad let Danny stand on his own, and the latter immediately placed a hand on the wall.

"You don't have the energy, Daniel," Vlad said.

Danny gave a little tired smirk. "Well, lucky for me, that's how I always operate: at half energy and all the odds against me," he said jokingly before phasing through the wall.

He was met with a rush of air that had him tumbling, and it took him a moment to right himself, but when he did, it looked as though the ship had already gone miles away from him, a flaming, smoking metal bullet tearing through a clear blue sky towards a large land mass that Danny couldn't quite identify from where he was.

Danny immediately raced after it, careful to avoid debris that was torn from the outside of the ship. It was difficult to breathe at the altitude he was at, and all of the air rushing up into his lungs made it even harder, but he ignored his discomforts, despite his body telling him that they were pressing matters that needed to be attended to. He knew he and the ship would eventually reach an altitude that would allow him an easier flow of oxygen, so he focused all of his attention instead on the ship. He raced it, pushing himself harder than he ever had before to surpass the massive object and get in front of it. Within a minute, he had gotten to the nose of the ship, which he now saw was the spot he had ripped out. It stood as a gaping hole, sparks dancing off of the tips of torn and burned wires and jagged metal edges making the entire hole look like teeth. Danny flew just below this, putting his hands on the underbelly of the ship before beginning to push opposite the earth, using all of his strength to slow the vessel's forward momentum.

Danny was strong, thanks to his powers, but he wasn't _that_ strong, and having already been wrung out and exhausted, he could feel what little energy he had remaining beginning to seep away. He resisted, pushing himself to keep fighting, but he knew deep down that he was fighting a pointless battle. Even with Vlad's combined help, he still wouldn't be able to stop the ship. It was too big and too heavy.

The thought of Vlad made him wonder why, after all of the effort the elder halfa had put into rescuing Danny, Vlad would leave him now. He looked around as best he could, but what he saw had his eyes widening in horror.

There were dozens of them. Dozens, in his view alone, of the Talent Scout ships in the sky above him and around him. He had been so focused on stopping the ship from falling that he had not even noticed. They were rapidly going out of view as the ship pushed him further and further towards the earth, but something else alerted him to where they were positioned in the sky as suddenly a bright green beam burst from one of the ships, connecting with the ground below. The sound of thousands of thunderclaps assaulted his ears, followed immediately by a boom that shook his bones. The air was once more penetrated by the far-off noise of another of these beams being shot down onto the planet, and Danny jumped.

Earth was being invaded.

Danny's arms started to feel like noodles, and as the ground began to race towards him, he thought about what he should do. Should he abandon the ship, save as many people as he could grab? Should he keep trying and potentially kill himself in the process? He was so exhausted, barely holding on to consciousness at this point, and doubted that he would have the energy to do either at this point.

Suddenly a blue and red blur flew past his vision, and he blinked for a second, wondering if perhaps it was a hallucination, but it quickly appeared again, right beside him. As Danny stared, he finally registered that it was a man. Danny blinked tiredly at him, and he felt a brief stab of panic before all of his energy was gone. His arms gave out and as he went limp, he felt a pair of arms grab him. He had enough energy to look over at the man in blue and red, who had taken his place at the belly of the ship, pressing muscular arms against the hull and slowing the ship, before he passed into unconsciousness.

* * *

**I apologize for any grammatical errors in this chapter. With as much homework as I have had recently, I have only been able to find time to write and proofread during the later hours, so my tired mind might have missed some mistakes. **

**This chapter marks the end of Part I, but I will be starting work immediately on Part II. I am very excited/nervous about it because it's going to have A LOT more cameos and characters to keep track of than I have even attempted yet. It's nerve-wracking, but I have a lot of fun and cool ideas that I have been very excited to attempt in this second part of the story and hope all of you will enjoy as well. **

**Also, I know I have been updating on Mondays up to now, but that will no longer be possible at this point. I will, as always, get updates out as frequently as I possibly can, but I cannot keep a reliable schedule anymore. If it seems as though it has been a particularly long time since you have seen an update, don't panic. This is my baby, and has been my baby for several years (the idea and some of the scenes came to me several years ago, and only recently developed into a fully-planned story), and I am not going to abandon it. There are two reasons an update might be taking a particularly long time and that is 1) because I have been swamped with homework and have been unable to find the time to write, or 2) what I have written is not up to my standards and needs a rewrite and/or deletion. **

**I look forward to hearing from you all and even more excited to see what you all think of Part II. See you then.**


	16. Chapter 16: Part II

**Welcome to Part II! I had tried to get this update up yesterday, but time did not allow for it. Notes will be at the end as usual. Enjoy the chapter.**

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Kid Flash sat crouched upon one of the raised pillars of the ancient abandoned ruins of Tikal, wiping the sweat and condensation from his forehead. Guatemala was bad enough without the added uncomfortableness of it being the middle of summer. Luckily, Kid Flash did not anticipate having to be there for a terribly long time. He had already located what he had been sent ahead to find.

Down below, he could see the Talent Scout soldiers hard at work, mining and excavating the site, pulling up barrel after barrel of a bright green crystal from the dirt surrounding the area. Surrounding the mining project at strategic intervals were several dozen students, all keeping careful watch for intruders. Of course, Kid Flash was much too fast for them to see him, and since he had run up the side of the ancient structure to get a higher vantage point on the work of the Talent Scouts, he had found a perfect place to remain unobserved.

Having seen all that there was to see, Kid Flash sped down the side of the pillar and raced back to his group. The team leader, Beast, stood waiting with the rest of the group, blue fur glistening with sweat, but expression composed despite the heat that was undoubtedly killing him. Really, Beast wasn't built for this kind of environment, but they were greatly understaffed as far as team leaders went, and Beast had kindly volunteered for this particular mission to help out. Kid stopped in front of him, purposefully making the stop curt to allow some of the air traveling with him to cool the entire team, all of whom looked quite relieved for the brief reprieve from the humidity and heat.

Kid glanced at the group, which was fairly small considering the task and how many they were up against. Blue Beetle was one of the few people in the group that did not appear bothered by the weather, but that may have been due to the fact that he was distracted with arguing with his Scarab. Kid didn't catch what the argument was about, but it undoubtedly had to do with something dastardly Scarab had suggested. Spiderman had been off by a bush, apparently constructing a better web for a spider he had found. Those two were only three people in the group that Kid knew personally. The others had only been teamed up with them recently. Among these was a girl called Bruiser, who was the only one to have thought to dress for the environment, forgoing spandex or armor for cargo shorts, a thin tank, hiking boots, a jaguar-designed headband, and a backpack full of provisions for the group. She was incredibly strong for her unimposing appearance (being both adorably short and looked as though she weighed next to nothing) and had offered with enthusiasm and pep to carry the supplies. One of the boys of the group Kid knew only because he had been on the opposing team during training on the Talent Scout ship. He had known him then as Benjamin Hammil, but he preferred being called by his alias, Match. He sat on the forest floor looking positively miserable, bald head ablaze as usual (although it appeared to have died down some due to the humidity) and skin glowing as though his insides were burning hot. No one had been particularly pleased to have the boy on their team because he was a bit of a hothead, but so far he had behaved. Lastly was a girl named Trance (a spunky girl who could apparently project an astral version of herself), who was also new to the team.

Kid's eyes scanned the small group for a moment before turning to Beast. "You're missing somebody."

"Yes, we're not entirely sure where he went off to. Trance, you haven't seen him, have you?" Beast asked the short-haired brunette.

Trance shook her head. "I don't think he's around here, otherwise I would've seen him."

Match rubbed his hands over his face and the flame on his head—as though it were hair and not a blaze—irritably. "Who cares? Let's just get this done already so we can get back to base. It's too damn _wet _out here. Look at my shirt. How am I supposed to burn anything if even my shirt is damp?"

"You think we should leave him, Match?" Beast asked, tone akin to that of a parent reprimanding a child. "Would you have us do the same to you if you went missing?"

"You know what, yeah, I would. Know why? Because I wouldn't fucking disappear in the middle of a mission."

"He has a point," Blue Beetle said.

"And it's not like this is the first time that asshole has done this," Match continued crossly.

"It isn't?" Beast asked in surprise.

"He's done this the past three or four missions," Spiderman added in, stepping away from the perfectly constructed web he had created with a small, proud smirk. He looked at the group and waved a hand dismissively. "We can go ahead and get going, though. He'll catch up."

"Where do you think he goes when he disappears like that?" Trance asked.

"Who gives a shit? What's the point of having him on the team if he's not going to be _on the team_?" Match groused.

"Match, quit complaining. He's saved your life twice already," Bruiser stated accusatorily.

"I had it covered. I never asked for his help."

"Ha. Well, it's a good thing he didn't need your permission," Bruiser said with a cheeky grin.

"Settle down," Beast told him. "Now, Spiderman, you're certain he will catch up with us?"

Spiderman nodded confidently. "Trust me. You don't have to worry about him."

Beast was hesitant to leave a team member behind, but after several more assurances from some of the senior members of the team, Beast finally relented and began leading the group towards the ancient Mayan ruins.

They allowed Trance to give the ruins one more survey before actually entering themselves. Trance projected her astral form—an all-white version of herself that floated in the air—and sent it into the air above the ruins to have another look. Trance's physical body remained behind, watching the white version of herself until it disappeared. Suddenly Trance gasped in surprise.

"Is everything alright?" Beast asked.

"Yeah… it's just… Phantom's there already."

"What?!" Match growled in irritation, turning his heel and starting to run through the forest towards the ruins.

"Match, come back here!" Beast ordered, but the young boy didn't listen to him.

"Match, wait!" Trance called after him. "He isn't-" she tried to explain what she had seen, but Match had already disappeared.

Kid Flash rolled his eyes, gave Spiderman a shrug, and then disappeared in a flash of red towards the ruins. The rest of the team quickly followed, Beast getting down on all fours to try and catch up with the teens that were completely out of his control now.

Kid Flash caught up to Match easily, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back before he could step through the clearing into the ruins' courtyard. "Where's the fire, buddy?"

"Get out of my way, Kid," Match growled.

"Sure thing, but first, listen just real quick. Okay? Just be quiet and listen real hard," Kid Flash said, leaning in and holding a hand to his ear. Match glared at him, but remained quiet. Kid waited a moment before looking at Match with raised brows, "You hear that?"

Match let out a huff. "Hear what?"

"Exactly," Kid Flash said, holding his arms out at his sides and gesturing at the rainforest. "Nothing but obnoxious birds. Don't you think that if Phantom were taking out those Talent Scouts without us, we'd hear something?"

Match blinked, shifting uncomfortably. "Trance said-"

Kid's eyes flicked up above Match's head, widened, and then he moved, shoving Match out of the way just as an enormous fist came crashing down on top of the very spot Match had just been standing. Connected to the fist was an enormous dark-skinned teen with a bald head, not shirt or shoes, and a decidedly mean-looking snarl. All along his body, which rippled with muscles upon muscles upon muscles, were what appeared to be glowing tattoos that ran along his arms, circling his elbows, up either side of his chest and back, and left three lines along the back of his skull. Kid gave Match another shove to get him a reasonable distance away from the hulking mass, running himself up the arm of the mountainous teen and then delivering a kick to his jaw once he'd gotten up on the teen's shoulder. It felt like kicking a block of steel and Kid only managed to knock himself back and off of the teen when the impact of his kick did not even cause the latter to flinch. Kid landed on his back, but quick as a flash picked himself up.

Match, finally catching up to what was going on, sent a burst of flame at the absurdly muscular teen, only to have his flames snuffed out by a stream of water that seemed to be formed all of sudden from the moisture in the air. The water then retreated to a brown-skinned girl off near the ruins, whose fluid movements that almost looked like a dance directed the water to move in the direction she wanted. She sent another tendril of water towards Match, the moisture from the humidity in the air making it grow. Match immediately built up the heat in his body, creating a shield that, once the water his skin in the form of sharp points of ice, it merely melted, creating an sharp hissing sound as it evaporated into the already thick air.

Just then, the rest of the team burst into the clearing, immediately being greeted by Talent Scout soldiers (about thirty of them), who began firing at them. The range and styles of the weaponry the Talent Scouts carried varied greatly, from flame-shooters, to plasma and energy blasters. Some even carried sword, bo-staffs, and other hand-to-hand combative weapons. This proved a useful tactic, since the majority of the time these Talent Scout soldiers were fighting a wide range of superpowered humans/monsters. It was a smart tactic on their part, and made it much more difficult for heroes to win battles.

Shots were being fired from everywhere, and before the team could really get a good foothold in the clearing, the dozen students (who the heroes now called Graduates) who had been guarding the outer portion of the ruins converged on them as well, forcing the team back slightly into the forest.

Bruiser had long since removed her large pack and, with a pumped battle cry and her eyes flashing bright purple, she ran headfirst into the clearing, knocking aside three soldiers and a large, furry, gorilla/lion creature that had attempted to block her path, dodging the shots being fired at her and punching anything within reach, each hit holding such a force behind it that she even managed to punch a soldier clear out of the ruins. Spiderman followed after her, covering her entrance by grabbing up the soldiers' weapons with his webs and leaving them dangling from the trees just out of their reach. He was met in the sky by a boy with enormous white wings, who began chasing him through the ruins and firing arrows at him.

Blue Beetle jumped in soon after, using Trance's astral projection to draw fire while he followed after her, firing from his own weapon that he formed from the Scarab's arm while simultaneously striking out with the sword he'd formed on the other.

Kid Flash was still working with little success to take down the large, glowing-tattooed teen, who only seemed to get stronger and angrier the longer Kid fought him. Kid had tried to create a vacuum around him that might cut off his air supply, but the hulking teen had held out an arm that had not only knocked Kid off of his feet, but had him flipping several times over the other teen's arm and knocking the air out of Kid's lungs. The task was proving much more difficult than he had anticipated.

Beast, meanwhile, had taken it upon themselves to take on some of the other Graduates who were still in play. Beast was taking on some sort of large, armadillo like creature that would continuously roll into a ball and attempt to flatten Beast, and a boy creature with an oversized spider as a head, the body of the body being carried along limply as though he had just accidentally stuck his head somewhere he shouldn't have.

The team were holding their own, but they were outnumbered, and as the other Graduates began joining the fray, it became harder for the team to hold their ground. Not only that, but more soldiers began to appear from the ruins, like ants crawling out of their hill.

Suddenly Trance's physical body came running up to the clearing, shouting at her team and pointing up to the sky.

Spiderman looked up as Danny shot down from the sky into the clearing, creating a shockwave that knocked several soldiers nearby off of their feet.

"Look who finally decided to join the party!" Spiderman called to him from where he was perched at the highest peak of the ruins after finally getting a good shot in at the flying boy who had been chasing him, wrapping the boy in webbing and dangling him from the side of the structure.

Danny formed a shield at his arms, deflecting two plasma shots that had been aimed at him and sending them straight back into the soldiers that had fired them, and gave Spiderman a cocky grin. "Thought I'd give you guys a minute before I cleaned up the place."

"Start over here!" Kid Flash called to him, keeping the monstrously muscular teen busy, running back and forth between knocking a soldier out cold and returning in time to get the huge teen to attack him, before going off and repeating the process.

Danny flew to him, phasing through the body of the large teen and overshadowing him, the large teen's eyes flashing green as Danny took over. It was an odd experience for Danny, whenever he would overshadow a Graduate, because there always seemed to be two consciousnesses he was trying to overshadow. One would at first be frightened at the intrusion, but then pull away, like they wanted Danny to take over, while the other fought him passionately for control. Luckily for Danny, the second's fight for control was usually strained, like it was trying to keep hold of too much at once, and Danny could claim control of the body within a few seconds.

Getting inside, however, was the easy part. He needed to tire the Graduate out, but given the teen's strength and endurance, it would be an extremely difficult endeavor. What was worse was that he had been offered the opportunity to learn how to do just this sort of thing from _within_ a host body not even a week prior. Danny groaned to himself, but didn't regret his decision of turning down the training. Training seemed to always come at a price, and he wasn't willing to pay it.

Instead, he decided he would just have to wear him out another way. He turned and immediately began attacking Graduates and soldiers with the teen's body. Danny was caught by surprise at just how much raw strength this particular teen had, as each swipe of the teen's massive, muscular arm would send soldiers clear out of the clearing and somewhere deep into the forest. Other times he would grab up discarded stones and crush the soldiers in his path, sometimes not even bothering with a weapon and just squishing them in between his fist and the ground. The Graduates looked surprised at being attacked by one of their own, and, being caught off guard, were not quick enough in engaging him. Danny tore through the ruins, using up as much energy as he could with each attack to try and tire out his host. When the chance arose, he would occasionally slip out his own arm, just for a moment, to use his own powers on the Graduates around him, sending a blast of ice at them to freeze them in place before continuing on.

Kid Flash followed along, going off and retrieving each body that was retrievable that Danny sent flying and gathering them up in a pile. Spiderman swung down from one of the pillars of the ruins to tie up the soldiers in webbing, but stopped when he realized none of the bodies were moving. All of them were very obviously dead. Spiderman gave a small frown to the macabre scene before moving on somberly.

Beast, quickly running out of enemies to fight, caught a chance to watch, a look of amazement—and a bit of unease—plastered on his face.

Trance walked up next to him and nodded, watching as well now that she no longer had any usefulness in the quickly dwindling fight. "I know. Pretty crazy."

"Why isn't he being sent out on bigger assignments? He clearly has the power for it," Beast commented.

"It's not by his choice, I can tell you that much," Trance said.

Beast raised a curious brow.

The rest of the team, meanwhile, had finally cleaned up the clearing, having the bodies of soldiers in one pile and the enemy students frozen here and there where Danny had shot them. Match and Trance immediately set to work preparing the frozen students for transport. Match would unfreeze a small portion of the ice encasing the students, while Trance injected them with heavy sedatives to ensure they would remain unconscious when Match melted away their icy prisons entirely, which he had to do quickly or else they would be unable to revive them. Beast, meanwhile, went off to retrieve their ship to load the newly unfrozen, unconscious students. While the three of them worked on this, the others dealt with their final problem; Danny's host.

"Guys, I've got a problem," Danny said through his host's voice. "I can't get this guy to tire out."

"So just get out of him and freeze him," Kid said. "Come on, I'm hungry and I want to get out of here."

"I can't. I won't be able to freeze him fast enough."

"What about Spiderman's web? Think that would hold him?" Blue Beetle asked.

"Not even a little," Danny replied with a shake of his head. "Like I said; this guy's tough."

"Can't you just freeze him from the inside?" Bruiser asked.

"If I wanted to kill him, sure," Danny answered mildly, then gave a sigh, looking to Blue Beetle. "Can you make a tazer? Maybe even something stronger?"

Blue Beetle nodded uncertainly. "Not a tazer exactly, but… you want me to do that with you inside?"

"Can't really let him go, so, yeah, that's what we're going to have to do."

"Will it hurt you?" Blue asked, still hesitant about the idea. Then he seemed to pause as though listening and responding curtly to no one, "Of course it matters!"

"Relax, Blue, I'll be fine," Danny said reassuringly. "Go ahead. Hit me. And Bruiser, if this doesn't work, and I get kicked out, be ready for a fight."

Bruiser pounded her fist into her hand with an affirmative nod.

Danny took a moment to brace himself before nodded to Blue, who formed a weapon with two prongs on the end that grew a bright blue orb in the center before pressing the weapon up against the body of Danny's host. The monstrous teen's body tensed immediately, falling to the ground and writhing. Although what Danny felt was milder, it still caused him pain as well: topping that with having to keep control of a writhing, panic/pain-stricken soul desperately trying to regain its body and get away from what was hurting it, Danny was barely holding on. Occasionally a limb would pop out of the body as Danny was muscled out of the way, the host's soul working furiously to reassert itself. Danny's shout of effort and pain burst out of the host from seemingly nowhere as he hung on, clinging to the body with all of his strength.

Blue Beetle looked quite alarmed at the scene, the large teen writhing and jerking involuntarily at the area where pain streamed into his body, one of Danny's limbs occasionally popping out from beneath his skin and Danny's unanchored voice bubbling over the sounds of the grunts and short, pained moans coming from the monstrous teen like a horrific freak show.

The rest of the team looked equally troubled at the scene, and it was clear from the glances to each other that they wanted to stop, but soon enough, the large teen's body finally relaxed, falling limp onto the ground and head lolling to the side. Immediately, Danny rolled out of the body to the side, breathing heavily and looking exhausted. A white ring formed at his center, but he squeezed his eyes shut, willing it to disappear again. Taking a moment laying on his back, he took several deep breaths before opening his eyes and looking around at the group. "He go out?"

"Like a light," Spiderman replied with a grin.

"You okay, ese?" Blue Beetle asked.

Danny sat up and nodded. "I'll be fine," he said dismissively, then looked around at the now quiet ruins. "How'd we do?"

"Haven't checked yet," Spiderman said, then looked to Kid Flash. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Kid grinned and disappeared with a gush of wind, returning immediately upon his departure with a red crystal. "We've got a red one!" Kid announced proudly, "The rest is green, but there's a ton of it."

"What's the red do again?" Blue Beetle asked.

Kid shrugged and waved a hand, "Ehhh, I don't remember. It's probably bad, though. It's always bad."

Beast landed the ship, a small craft that could fit a little over a two dozen people and had a decently sized cargo hold, in the clearing and the group proceeded to load up the unconscious bodies of the students and over a three dozen barrels of green crystals, as well as the red one. When everything and everyone was accounted for, the ship lifted off and began heading out of Guatemala.

Beast flew it as close to the ground as he could safely manage. It wasn't safe to fly too high in the sky, as doing so could catch the attention of one of the thousands of Talent Scout ships blockading the atmosphere, not to mention draw the attention of any of the hundreds of thousands of patrol ships that tended to fly just between the ground and the hovering Talent Scout ships.

Danny stared out his window at the ships above, just barely visible as fuzzy shapes far off in the distance. Their presence made his blood boil. He knew he could take down every last one of them, if he could only get to them. His fists clenched and he let out an angry breath, looking away.

Kid Flash, who occupied the seat next to him, glanced at him. "You okay?"

"Fine," Danny replied.

Kid nodded, looking at Danny again with a kind of cautious interest. "So uh… where do you go? When you disappear."

"None of your business," Danny replied dully, unconsciously reaching up and shifting the strap over his chest, which held the thermos at his side.

"Just asking," Kid said, raising his hands passively. A silence fell between the two for a moment, but it didn't take long for Kid to pick up the conversation again. "You know you've been pissing Match off with the whole 'disappearing act' deal."

"If Match has a problem with me, he can tell me himself," Danny replied, an edge to his voice this time as he finally turned to actually look at Kid with an aggravated expression.

"Look, man, I'm not judging," Kid said pacifyingly, "I'm just trying to make sure that, you know, you're good."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Danny asked.

Kid shrugged, but Danny could tell that it wasn't because he didn't have a reason for thinking that. He just didn't want to share. "What?" Danny pressed.

Kid sighed, looked at the others in the seats behind them to ensure none of them were listening, then leaned in a little closer, "Me and some of the others have noticed some… things. Just little things. But, you know, in the _grand scheme_-" he did a little flourish with his fingers "-it seems like something's off with you."

Danny stared at him for a second intensely, trying to decide if he wanted to press further. On one hand, he wasn't sure if he cared whether or not they thought something was off. Danny didn't need their judgments on top of everything else, and he definitely didn't need their opinions to influence him during missions. Then again, he couldn't help being a little curious as to what they had seen in him. Danny knew what Kid was talking about, but he wasn't sure how much Kid _knew _the speedster was actually observing.

"What do you mean?"

Kid sighed again, more heavily; less confidently. "You've been disappearing before missions. You've been—and don't get pissed at me about this—kinda a dick lately, and Blue swears up and down that you've got a Scarab or something, because he says he's noticed you talking to and looking at something that isn't there."

Danny grimaced slightly. He had expected the first two things, but that last part he had hoped no one had noticed. There were only a handful of people who knew that, since their escape, Danny had not stopped seeing Dan. The other hallucinations and the paranoia had subsided, but Dan had stayed. Worse yet, he had stayed and become more talkative. Dan liked to comment on anything Danny was doing, offering ridiculous suggestions and egging Danny on until he became so angry that, a few times, he had blacked out and ended up somewhere he had no memory of going. Every now and then Danny got a reprieve from Dan's visits, although there didn't seem to be any particular reason that Dan would show up some times and not others. Right now, Dan wasn't around; hadn't been all morning, much to Danny's relief.

Danny was about to refute Blue's observations, not liking the fact that Blue was going around telling everyone that Danny was talking to himself, when he was interrupted by a load whoop from Bruiser. He and Kid both twisted in their seats to look at the others in the back, all of whom were leaning towards the windows to look up at the sky. Danny followed suit, glancing out his window to see the Man of Steel flying overhead, donning his typical blue and red suit. Danny thought it was stupid to wear such contrasting colors; they made him an easy target. But then again, it _was _Superman.

"What do you think he's doing?" Bruiser asked excitedly. It was not a secret to the group that Bruiser was, for lack of a better term for it, a huge Superman fan. She always shrieked excitedly when she saw him flying by, which was actually a fairly rare occurrence. Out of everyone in the Justice League, Superman was kept the most busy, mostly with odd jobs. When the invasion had initially begun (at least to humanity's awareness, for it turned out that the Talent Scouts had been secretly preparing the planet for an invasion for quite some time), Superman had flown up to take out the ships entering the atmosphere only to discover that said ships were shielded with some space-age material that had been somehow laced with Kryptonite. He couldn't touch them. Apparently the Talent Scouts had been harvesting Kryptonite for a great deal of time on the planet, procuring enough to create shields. Since then, they had continued harvesting Kryptonite for weapons. Danny and his team were among those groups responsible for ensuring the Talent Scouts did not procure any more than they already had. Since then, Superman occupied his time protecting earth's citizens from the war in whatever way he could.

"Probably headed for Mexico. I heard another ship of Graduates landed there this morning. Causing a bunch of trouble," Spiderman said.

"Another one?" Trance asked with alarm. "How many more could they possibly have?"

"With as often as those battleships switch out, I'd guess they bring in new Graduates from other planets they've conquered. Who knows how long the Talent Scouts have been doing this or how many Graduates they have," Spiderman replied.

"_Shame we can't get to those battleships._"

Danny shut his eyes, ignoring Dan's comment as the older version of himself leaned against the door of their ship, arms folded and looking mockingly contemplative. Danny looked out the window to get him out of his view, but it didn't matter.

Dan kept talking.

* * *

**I realize that there were a few things in this chapter that I only introduced or eluded to, but did not actually answer. I did so on purpose, as I will be answering several questions over the next chapter or two. I was so terrified about writing Blue Beetle. I know there are several people reading that are huge fans of YJ, and I hope I did him justice. He's not terribly prevalent in this chapter, but he will be more involved as the story progresses. If you don't remember some of the other characters mentioned as having been introduced in Part I, that's okay. It isn't necessary for you to remember them. **

**I really need to rewatch YJ again. It's a good show and I need to refresh my memory on some things. That may cause me to be a little late on updating, but I'll try not to let my research slow me down too much. **

**I hope you enjoyed the update. I will post the next chapter as soon as I have written it. See you then. **


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